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Ontological Arguments from Anselm to Gödel
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- Ontological arguments seek to prove God's existence from the armchair. But are they any good? Let's tour some prominent ontological arguments and some prominent objections to help us find out.
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00:00 Intro
1:13 Anselm's Ontological Argument
4:19 Descartes’ Ontological Argument
5:37 Parodies
14:38 Modal Ontological Argument
22:23 Gödelian Ontological Argument
30:13 Dialectical problem
43:44 Riposte
45:43 Dilemma for the riposte
50:01 Another dialectical problem
56:30 Further criticisms
58:43 Bonus soccer
LINKS
(1) Want the script? Become a patron :)
(2) Oppy’s article “Ontological Arguments” from The Philosophers’ Magazine: archive.philosophersmag.com/o...
(3) Ontological Arguments playlist: • Ontological Arguments
(4) Oppy (2000), “Response to Gettings”: philpapers.org/archive/OPPRTG...
(5) Oppy (2017), “The Ontological Arguments”: drive.google.com/file/d/1y2cb...
(6) A User’s Guide to the Modal Ontological Argument: • A User's Guide to the ...
(7) Four Ontological Arguments in 12 Minutes: • Four Ontological Argum...
(8) Graham Oppy responds to Josh Rasmussen’s Ontological Argument: • Graham Oppy responds t...
(9) Bonus Soccer playlist! • Bonus Soccer
(10) My Springer book: (a) www.amazon.com/Existential-In... (b) link.springer.com/book/10.100...
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Anselm writes beautifully fr
My partner is currently under the impression that I am slightly crazy since all she heard in the background was positive property and negative property repeated in sentences, for about an hour :D
Great video and through analysis! I have no idea why this has only 5k views after almost 9 months. Vastly underrated. Like, share and subscribe is what I can do from my end.Thank you for putting this together.
Thanks❤️❤️❤️
32% is the worst score possible. It's low enough that it shows sheer ignorance, and high enough to rule out luck or that you deliberately didn't try to pass it.
lol
I am not quite sure how to deal with ontological arguments when their advocates want to claim properties such as "being of which nothing greater can be thought". That is, in what sense is that being spoken of as "greater"? It seems obvious to me that terms like "better" or "greater" only make sense if they are tied to a particular subject (e.g., one person is greater than another in relation to his or her height). Not that such concepts can make sense in and of themselves.
Well done, Joe!!
Some great analysis here Joe!
I think Anselm is refering to the unity of ontology and epistemology in the essence of God: meaning that if you give a coherent definition of God you are actually showing his external existence.
Now why are epistemology and ontology united in God as the highest reality? Here is why:
1) Truth is existent
2) Existence is true
3) therefore existence and truth are one.
This means that truth (as an epistemological concept) is the same as existence (as an ontological concept) in God as the highest reality.
Clearly, this video is that than which no greater can be conceived. Been waiting for another video on Ontological Arguments!
This video exists now 😳
Awesome video
God Exists, by definition.
Not a good argument, IMO.
It's actually a pretty good argument!
@@Augustinianismusit's a quality of argument that could be made for absolutely anything... So I'd say that makes it really bad.
New ontological video just dropped I LOVE IT
Great video, MoR. Personally, ontological arguments strike me as a "therefore God" without premises; I mean, the premises are there, but reading them I can't help but wonder if there is ANYONE out there who believes (or has started to believe) in God because of this. I'm sure philosophers enjoy the back-and-forth and can work wonders with the subject, but off the field it seems to me that ontological arguments only serve to silence atheists who have never heard of them.
I think that philosophy can be very interesting.
But all those armchair philosophers who try to define their God into existence drastically reduced my opinion about the usefulness of philosophy.
Especially the first time I heard William Lane Craig present the modal ontological argument was like a shock… I seriously thought that it was supposed to be satire.
Cool. Skipped to the soccer to see if you got skills. Didn’t disappoint. Now returning to the start.
I was waiting for it af
As a theist ive never been persuaded by ontological arguments. I find them interesting but in terms of proving Gods existence they do not do that.
And thats ok because most of our beliefs are supported by system of evidence not by any one deductive demonstration
Yeah as a theist as well I found good evidence for Gods existence but I don’t think you can just like . Logic or define him into existence
Someone PLEASE make Michael Knowles read this comment 😢
@@logans.butler285 um . What lmao
Michael Knowles would never watch Magestu of reason he’s like conservative junk food
@CubanClyde oh are there videos of that? I literally looked it up and I couldn’t find anything other than him bashing on trans people
@@alejandrosocarras1734 He's a 100% defender of the argument in fact it's the one that made him a theist. In his Twitter he even said that the ontological argument is a "compelling" piece of evidence for God's existence (can't link tweets myself because I don't have Twitter, sorry). A couple of internet atheists jumped in and replied whether this applied to "all 388 gods" lmao.
The problem here is one of essential vs. accidental properties. The properties involved in being a perfect pizza or a perfect test score do not follow from the definition or essence of a pizza or test score. It does not follow from the definition of pizza that a pizza be a perfect pizza and that, consequently, it exists.
And so even if there were a perfect pizza, that it is perfect and exists are not essential to it, and so it could have not been perfect nor have existed.
However, when speaking of an absolutely perfect being, absolute perfection is essential to such a being, for if it be accidental, that is a lower grade of perfection. Hence it follows from the very definition of an absolutely perfect being that is neccesarily is absolutely perfect and neccesarily exists. Whereas for the definition of a perfect pizza, since perfection and existence are not essential to its essence as a pizza, it's possible that this pizza not actually be perfect and not actually exist.
brilliant!
A question: do you believe that existence is a property of things?
nope. existence is a vague word used by humans who want to spread bullshit.
I liked your intro video and music... both very beautiful. (also an argument for God)
And your detailed reasoning with the aim toward truth is inspiring. (also an argument for God)
;-)
Fancy seeing you here!!
@@NontraditionalCatholic 🙂 I've enjoyed Joe's stuff for awhile... but he needs more taco focused content.
I'm just here for Joe's great dribbling skills.
I think the first two arguments for conceiving the greatest possible being (god) falls apart if you introduce a second person. My coworker conceives a vengeful god as the perfect god while I prefer a peaceful god. They can’t both exist as the perfect god, yet we convinced two very different gods that by our own logic must exist and the other can’t. Technically god could be either vengeful or peaceful and still be considered perfect depending on your values.
4:52 "I clearly see that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than its having three angles equal to two right angles be separated from the idea of a rectilinear triangle [...]'.
As the idea of a rectilinear triangle, and the geometry relating to it, is axiomatic and as all non-redundant axioms reduce the space of applicability, we conclude that the argument is restricted in scope, therefore not universal, so any God is not Universal, which contradicts the ontological argument.
Joe I am writing a book. Do you have time to read and give comment on my book? My book is full of models and diagrams and is an attempt to answer many philosophical problems. If so how can I send it to you or someone else with expertise in philosophy?
Wouldn't it be the case that any necessary positive property A would fail to meet the second requirement (that any property B entailed by A must also be positive)? A necessary positive property would entail negatives. For instance, if the positive property A is "person X always tells the truth" then this implies the negative property B "person X never tells a lie". Or put another way, if A is "always tells the truth" and B is "sometimes tells lies" then A implies not-B.
Additionally, have you ever covered the use of paraconsistent logic in arguments for the existence of God? For instance, the 2017 paper "Theism and Dialethism" by A.J. Cotnoir?
Great question. So, a negative property, in this context, isn’t a property that in some manner embeds a negation; if that’s how we conceive negative properties, then you’re correct. But the notion of ‘negative property’ at play is the notion of a property that makes it bearer *worse*, or that detracts from its greatness.
And as for the Cotnoir point, check out the video I made with Jc Beall and Mike DeVito!
@@MajestyofReason Ah, I must have mistook that point about positive/negative properties.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely check it out!
LETS GOO
I'm not sold on the ontological arguments, not quite. But your first parody I don't think works
The second parody also seems inadequate. I think that difference is that your score is contingent. IF you have a perfect score, then, yes, the perfect score is and exist. But if you have a score, it could be perfect or imperfect, so the perfect score may or not exist.
I think you'll have to show another thing that it's by its very essence necessary.
Okay, nvm you addressed it jajaja
I find that the parodies to Anselm's argument are categorically different from the original argument. By confining what "that" is into a specific item (i.e. a score by me on the test), the contingency of that item is conceded (since that item is already known, or defined, to be contingent to external factors). The generic phrase, "the greatest conceivable being" does not concede the contingency, which makes it unaffected by its parodies. Is there a good resource that adequately addresses this issue?
Just a question for you, is there any reasoning given that the greatest possible being isn't contingent? From my point of view because it's definitional can't we just say contingency is greater than non-contigency and be on equal ground with it's parallel claim?
From my point of view since it's conceptual you can build your own god as many do a teddy bear without much restriction.
@@andrewballard2783 Good question! Contingency refers to "possibility." And to be non-contingent (or "necessary") means to be maximally possible (that is, the greatest degree of possibility). So by definition, non-contingency is greater than contingency. Hence, to define that contingency is greater than non-contingency would be self-contradictory.
@@conversative Thanks for the response. What about a greater possibility makes it greater in the larger concept? How do we determine the weights of each? Like for example we might say something with a lower possibility of cancer is greater than something with the greater possibility of cancer. The possibility of the thing in that context isn't imported into the value of the larger concept definitionally so I find it hard to understand the greater possibility=greater for the concept overall.
@@andrewballard2783 Correct, in the case of negative properties (i.e. cancer) the less possibilities would be greater (overall). So it's helpful to understand the phrase "that than which no greater can be conceived" as "the maximally great being." This means that this 'being' will only possess positive properties (because if it possessed negative properties, surely something greater can be conceived-namely, the same without those negative properties). Since it only possesses positive properties, then its necessity would be also greater than its mere contingency.
@@conversative Sure, so final question I have is how we determine whether a property is positive or negative. If I believe contigency is a negative property then it makes sense to say the greatest possible being would be minimally contingent? Or in other words the greatest possible being would be the least possible being.
I am starting to wonder what you scored on the test.
Dude. The argument against the Gödelian argument broke my brain for a while.
I was working off my assumption that:
(A entails B) implies not(A entails not(B)).
So saying that A entails B implies that for A impossible, that A entails all B, suggested to me that A is not impossible for any A since A cannot entail both B and not B.
But I think the point was that if A is impossible (for if a person takes A to be impossible), then the Gödelian Ontological Argument has no persuasive force.
This seems to be overly complicated, since it feels like Plantinga's comment that you alluded to earlier about how the Modal Ontological Argument doesn't have persuasive effect. Basically they rely on an IF, either explicitly or implicitly, that if denied means the rest of the argument can be ignored.
"If such great-making properties exist, then..."
"Imma let you finish, but I reject the existence of these properties. So the rest of your argument will have no persuasive effect on me. Go on..."
I find it much easier to reject this idea of "entails" than to connect every description to its possibility.
@@goldenalt3166 I tend to agree. It seems convoluted to talk about an impossible thing requiring all things to be true if it itself is true. If it's impossible, then why speculate on what would follow from its truth?
@@pesilaratnayake162 Yes. It's not the consequent that is true but the implication itself. That's just not how we normally think about things.
I love your stuff Joe! But i must confess that much of it is over my head. What about this?
1) God's existence is either impossible or necessary.
2) God's existence is not impossible.
3) Therefore God's existence is necessary.
4) Therefore God exists.
I guess the controversial premise is 2. If you were going to try to defend 2 how would you try to do it? I've thought about trying to replace God in the argument with a specific divine property that would be more clearly possible than the entire divine nature of God. I've thought about a Rossian Omnipotent Being(ROB). A ROB is a being that for every logically possible and contingent state of affairs p, whether p is the case is logically equivalent to the effective choice, by ROB, that p. Obviously if a ROB exists it would exist necessarily. And as far as I know pretty much everyone agrees that ROB is a logically coherent concept that doesn't fall prey to objections that other definitions of Omnipotence do. Apparently most people dont like ROB because if a ROB exists than Determinism is true. But that hardly seems to be an argument that ROB is impossible.
1) ROB's existence is either impossible or necessary.
2) ROB's existence is not impossible.
3) Therefore ROB's existence is necessary.
4) Therefore ROB exists.
What do you think?
Can’t you just run the same argument but change premise 2 to “ROB’s non existence is not impossible” and conclude ROB is impossible in the same way the video does it
@@joeypotter4669 I think you can. Although that is why arguing for ROB might be better than arguing for God. ROB seems to be obviously logically coherent and therefore not impossible. So the burden of proof might be on the person who says ROB is not possible. Maybe🤷
How tf do I conceive of an omnipresent, time-less immaterial outside of space existing disembodied mind?
21:30 Is God’s non-existence possible? Can the sentence “That Being without which nothing that is could be” be, if that Being wasn’t? Therefore if that sentence (or anything else in existence) exists, then that Being exists necessarily. I know, I’ve just invoked the contingency argument to save the ontological argument, but we are talking about necessity & possibility, so it’s related.
You can’t even imagine a universe with no God, because as soon as you imagine it, your mind is the ground of its imaginary existence, therefore you ARE its God.
So a universe without God is literally a self contradictory concept, since it (an inconceivable concept) is as possible as a square circle.
It's not a contradiction to deny that there _is_ "a being without which nothing [else] would be". Or to question whether such a concept is even coherent.
@@legron121 It is a contradiction to deny that, because in order to deny it, you have to be! If you “are” then whatever was necessary for you to be must be. If space, time, & matter were all that was necessary for you to be, then whatever was necessary for them to exist must be too.
@@geomicpri
There are many things necessary for me to be. It's not a contradiction to deny that there exists a _single_ "being without which nothing else could be".
@@legron121 Science is pretty dedicated to the idea of not multiplying causes unnecessarily. The reason we believe in things like common ancestry is because it’s more likely that everything came from one first cell than to suppose that there were several. Why posit more grounds of reality than one?
More importantly, what would it even mean to have more than one ground of reality? In what reality would two “grounds” co exist? Cuz then we’d ask what the ground is for that reality, & then that would be God instead.
@@geomicpri
Ok, but why should there be anything without which space, time, or matter would not be? Indeed, what would it mean for space "not to be"? How would you characterise such a scenario?
Theists who support the ontological argument usually will state that the ontological argument can only be applied to the concept of being.
So it might go something like this:
1. The greatest possible being is logically possible.
2. Assume that the greatest possible being (call it “F”) does not exist in reality.
3. A being in reality is greater than a being that is only logically possible.
4. Then we can think of the greatest possible being that is also real (call it “G”).
5. “G” is a greater being than “F” because of Premise 3.
6. But Premise 5 contradicts Premise 2, because there cannot be a greater being than “F”.
7. Therefore, the greatest possible being exists in reality.
What reason is there to think a god would have to exist necessarily? I don't think these are at all good arguments for theism, but it seems that there's no way you could argue _against_ theism with an ontological argument without assuming that any god that exists must exist necessarily. That seems like it would make an ontological argument, if it worked at all, stronger in the theist direction.
I just had a little debate on Descartes ontological argument with ChatGPT for fun, and even it agrees with me despite being quite apologetic habitually lol :
Your argument is a valid one. If morality is subjective and varies between individuals and cultures, then the concept of "perfection" may also be subjective and difficult to define objectively. In this case, it may be difficult to conceive of a being that is universally considered "perfect" since different people would have different standards or criteria for what constitutes perfection.
Regarding Descartes' ontological argument, it is based on the premise that the concept of God is that of an absolutely perfect being, and that the idea of perfection implies existence. However, if the concept of perfection is subjective and varies between individuals and cultures, then the argument may be weakened or even undermined, since it relies on a universal conception of perfection.
Pardon my cynocephaly, but in regards to Gödel’s OA, I, for some reason, originally understood “positive properties” as simply being and “negative properties” as non-being or privation. Literally + and -. So being omnipotent is + in the sense that it is + abilities rather than - abilities. (+1 vs. 0) But I can’t make sense of the dialectic problem understanding + and - properties that way. What do you mean by “positive and negative?”
I'd think it could be revealed in objections to omnipotence. For example, having the power to lift any rock means you can't have the power to create unliftable rocks. Thus some positive properties might entail some negative ones.
@@goldenalt3166 I see. I think looking at the property of omnipotence purely in isolation might allow for something like the ability to create an infinite stone that occupies the entirety of space so that there simply is no place to move the stone relative to anything else… sorta like an omnipresent rock that can only be moved by rotating or spinning, but at that point, I think we’re introducing logic and not only looking at omnipotence anymore. And with that in mind, I don’t hear many (if any) theists saying that God is only omnipotent. 🤔
@@goldenalt3166 In other words, saying it’s possible to do an impossible thing might be a problem for a being who is only omnipotent, but not for one who has other properties which can explain the limit in power, like being perfectly logical, good, self-consistent, covenantal… stuff like that.
@@theautodidacticlayman My point is that positive things might entail negative things. Being charitable or self-sacrificing means you are less wealthy. Being all-knowing means you can't be pleasantly surprised. Being forgiving might reduce dispensing justice.
@@goldenalt3166 I think(might be wrong) the other use was saying that in this particular case the negatives aren't really negatives. not being able to create a rock so heavy that one can't lift it and then lift it or square circle aren't real negatives/limitations to God.
13:35 But if we rephrase the sentence "the greatest conceivable being" to the "the greatest conceivable *thing* ", then wouldn't this defeat the parody? Because in this case a "score", or "table", or "island" or whatever, could not be the greatest conceivable thing, namely because I can always conceive of something greater, a god for example!
Now this would involve some subjective reasoning on how to know what thing is greater than another thing (is a pizza greater than a door?) and based on what criteria, which would limit the force of the argument. But I think we will still find a majority who would agree that God is greater than a pizza or door hahaha
In any case, the Anselmian ontological argument has other problems and assumptions that could be challenged. But let me know what you think on my suggestion I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.
A fair question but I don't think it avoids the parody. As far as I understand it in philosophy 'being' refers to a 'thing that exist' anyway. Meaning by saying 'being' we are already talking about a 'thing'.
I think Joe's point about the parody's is that the same reasoning is leading us to be able to conceive of many 'things' that are the 'greatest possible'. This then suggests the reasoning is perhaps flawed in some way.
@@rogerwade8686 But if that's the case, then using the "island" (or "score" or whatever) example is a disanalogy. There is a difference between a set and members of this set. When taking an "island" or "score" we are already choosing specific members of the set of all things. But the ontological argument says to imagine "the greatest conceivable thing" from the set of all things. So figuratively speaking, we should "look" at this set (i.e., the set of things) and "pick out" the greatest member of it.
It is a disanalogy to pick out a specific member of this set beforehand (e.g., an island) and apply the ontological argument on this member. The whole point of the ontological argument is to look (or rather conceive) at all the members of this set, and pick out the greatest among them.
@@charbelbejjani5541 I don't think the Joe's alternative examples are supposed to be analogies. Rather the point is to show how the same reasoning leads to differing conclusions with regard to what the 'greatest conceivable being/thing' is.
And so perhaps there is something amiss with the reasoning in the first place.
How does someone not notice that you can conceive of something actually existing, without the thing actually existing?
4:38
Some of those free kicks were pretty good.
More soccer next time, lol.
I would also like to see an analysis of the best arguments for atheism. Too many videos dedicated to arguments for theism :p
Soccer+philosophy=life
Also! To your second point: the problem is that most of my research in philosophy of religion is specifically on args for theism! Haha. My videos tend to reflect my research, and since my research in phil rel is primarily on ontological and cosmological args, that's what I make a lot of videos on. (It's why my playlists for cosmo and ontological arguments are very full compared to other args!)
But I get you!
@@MajestyofReason ❤
Arguments for atheism... I don't believe in gods. I am an atheist. I don't have an argument FOR atheism. I don't see how that's even coherent. I don't understand how gods can exist and would like someone to help me first understand how they are even possible then convince me they exist. Yet no one ever does either.
Also I'm not a philosopher. I'm just a person who doesn't believe in gods.
@@JosephKano Ha, that's an argument too. You are arguing that the concept of god is incoherent, logically/metaphysically impossible.
Could you exemplify how A entails b and non b
If A is false, then any implication of A is true (vacuously). So, A->B is true and A -> not B is also true. I think it's an unintuitive definition of "entails" that the argument relies on.
@@goldenalt3166 can I say if god is omniscient it entails that god is not ignorant, but not ignorant cannot be positive attribute.
@@critical8226 I'm not convinced that that is always true. "Ignorance is bliss" Also, it has been argued that free will cannot exist with an omnipotent, omniscient being. And as a already mentioned surprise. These are all positive attributes not just the absence of attributes.
@@goldenalt3166 I mean the attribute holds its negation as well and it’s a contradiction
@@critical8226 What attribute "holds" its negation?
Even perfection cannot withstand the Argument from Disappointment. The consideration "that than which nothing greater can be thought" will inevitably taste bland when sucked on for long enough. You will be wondering what is on the other channel at some stage, if only even for an instant. There is nothing which exists that will not disappoint before too long.
Imagining a God that exists isn't the same as a God existing
Great ball skills really enjoyed watching but, no left foot shots ? (cough Arsenal - a treat for you if you haven't seen this -- ua-cam.com/video/nC6ODcSC4CM/v-deo.html)
I don’t know if ontological arguments should even be taken seriously. They are mostly word play.
Dude, how many words do you have blocked, I can't post my comment.
I don't block *any* words my dude. UA-cam has a very restrictive algorithm. Also, UA-cam usually doesn't allow people to comment links, for whatever reason.
@@MajestyofReason I've seen your videos about Hyperianism, and let me tell you those videos did a great disservice to our movement. Hyperianism is a plagiarized and distorted version of the real thing, which is illuminism. He got so much wrong, and on purpose, he's a cult leader making loads of money from his cult slaves off of the work of others.
So if your interested, we may invite you for a discussion on our movements channel, but for some reason I can't post it.
You'll need some basic knowledge about it beforehand of course.
The channel is called The Para.digm Shift, see if that works..
I like philosophy, but sometimes it is unnecessarily complicated by pedantic semantics and terminology.
All variations of the ontological argument have the premise that god is defined as something that exists in reality and conclude that god exists in reality. The more sophisticated arguments just obfuscate existence in the premise or make it less obvious that the logic is not simply revealing the original definition. However, whether defined as "supremely perfect", "greatest perceived being", or "having the property of necessary existence", they all embed the requirement of necessary existence in reality as part of the definition - otherwise it isn't a god, isn't perfect, isn't greatest, etc.
If you define something as existing, it doesn't mean it actually exists, because you can do it with anything to which you add the definitional property of existence (or something which includes necessary existence, like greatness). This is why there are so many parody responses, from the greatest conceivable pizza to Paddy McGreen, the necessarily existent leprechaun.
I only watched parts of the video so far, but I would like to say that I don't really find parody arguments convincing as critiques of the ontological argument, though I am not sure how philosophically watertight my objection is. Take the "score on a test by me of which no greater score on a test by me can be conceived". You are probably thinking about a 100% score. But wouldn't that score be even greater if it had the power to do things on its own? Would that score that can do things not be even greater if it could do all things? So an omnipotent score is greater than a non-omnipotent score. And if we go on like that, we end up with a score that is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal, the creator of everything. In the end you get something that has little in common with a normal test score and much in common with how God is normally defined.
Do you mean parity or Parody? I ask cause I thought he said parity which is a very different idea than Parody.
Ah I am only part way through maybe he does cover both Parity in the early part and Parody in the later part.
Nope I appear to have just misheard. It's Parody. Huh. OK.
Well, a score (metaphysically) can’t “do” or “be” anything “more” than existing or not existing in reality, and being a measure for test-performance. So the greatest score conceivable is literally just the highest actually existing one (following anselm). The greatest possible score is limited to remaining a score, definitionally. If you start assigning other random stuff to a test score, then it doesn’t become a greater “test score,” it just becomes a greater “thing.” This is not a problem for Anselm, though, because he speaks generally when he just says “that.”
Why do you hate us ? Why do you not have UA-cam shorts. You know they would be awesome. Why Joe , why ?
Cause shorts are donkey ball.
13:50 I think that’s false. Your perfect score parody smuggles in an element that the theistic arguments don’t have, namely some sort of limitation. Your perfect score, like the perfect island or the perfect pizza is limited to being a score, island, or pizza (respectively), whereas the the theistic arguments set no such limitation. It is simply “That than which…” Since the parodies smuggle in limitations, the limited things they are pretending to prove cannot also be maximal. God’s ontology is unique because He is supposed to embody all the perfections. He is not limited to being a pizza or an island (or a door).
If you say “Greatest conceivable x” & then put a limit on what x can be, then you have created a contradiction that the theist isn’t making.
Putting in such a ‘limit’ doesn’t entail a contradiction. There is no contradiction in the greatest conceivable score; indeed, I achieved the greatest conceivable score (100%) on many tests I’ve taken, and so that concept can’t be contradictory - it has actual instances, and no contradictory concept can have actual instances.
Note that the parody isn’t about something which is maximal *simpliciter* . It would, indeed, be absurd to say that something is maximal *simpliciter* , and it’s also a score, since any score isn’t a maximally great thing. But that’s just not how the parodies work. They aren’t saying something is maximal and it’s a score; they’re saying it’s a *maximal score* , ie, it isn’t maximal *simpliciter* but is only maximal *with respect to the dimensions along which scores can be great* . So there is no contradiction at all. It’s not as though we’re describing something which is unlimited and also has limits.
@@MajestyofReason Ah, but then as Cosmic Sceptic pointed out, a 100% score is not less than 100% just because it fails to exist in reality. A 100% score that you did not achieve is no less than a 100% score that you did achieve.
Au contraire, a 100% score that was TOO great for you to achieve is arguably greater than one you could achieve.
😂
@@geomicpri a 100% score that fails to exist in reality is nothing at all, so it is certainly worse than one that actually exists - it doesn’t have *any* properties, since for x to be F, x must be! 🙂
Another way a theist may try to get out of the perfect score parody is to say that a being in reality is a greater being than that same being only in the mind.
So the perfect island in reality is a greater being than the perfect island just in the mind. But there's no contradiction is denying that the perfect island doesn't exist in reality. Similarly, the perfect score in reality is a greater being than the perfect score just in the mind.
However, the greatest possible being is a greater being than the greatest possible being just in the mind. Which does lead to a contradiction if we initially assumed that the greatest possible being exists just in the mind.
@@MajestyofReason "a 100% score that fails to exist in reality is nothing at all, so it is certainly worse than one that actually exists" I'm not sold on this, just because it doesn't exist do not mean it wouldn't or couldn't exist, and even then the possibility of you getting a higher score is something that should be in account. Especially if something like the Multiverse actually does exist in which case your higher score exists, just not in THIS world which is a very different scenario from it not being in existence in totality
A god that created itself is greater than a god that necessarily exists. (In my opinion.)
"No other is greater" does not imply uniqueness. Is there an ontological argument that purports to prove ONE AND ONLY ONE God exists?
I don't believe human minds can actually hold a conception of extremely great entities or abstractions such as infinity. We can only hold in mind their definitions and a few of their properties. Conceptions are crude approximations.
The "existence" of an abstraction (such as a number or a geometrical shape) is a different kind of existence than the existence of things in this world. For the sake of clarity in discussions about whether God exists in this world, it would be better to say abstract things do not exist in this world.
There are two kinds of "possible worlds": possible worlds that actually exist (PWE) and possible worlds that do not actually exist (PWNE). To say that something "exists" in a PWNE is to abuse the meaning of the word "exists." The only things that actually exist are in PWEs. For the sake of clarity in discussions about whether God exists, it would be better to say that things that "exist only in PWNEs" do not exist.
This got deboonked by the byzantine scotist on twitter
The debooonking misunderstoood the nature of the video, as I explained to them on Twitter 👍
@@MajestyofReason Oh ok, I only saw that now. Do you plan to, have made a more detailed exmination of the ontological argument?
@@Testimony_Of_JTF my ontological argument playlist should hopefully be very helpful; I have lots of quite extensive videos therein. I’d also strongly recommend my forthcoming SEP entry with Graham Oppy and Josh Rasmussen on ontological arguments, as well as Graham Oppy’s masterpiece book “Ontological Arguments and Belief in God”🙂
@@MajestyofReason Thanks Joe 👍
Lol. Parodies don't work. They are parodies of themselves more than of the ontological arguments.
Very convincing reply, thanks!
🥺
@@MajestyofReason you're welcome.
I assume that you have to be trolling
@@thatnhoxiu Well duh, he's an internet Christian, what do you expect?