Fun and thorough vid! These arguments always struck me as so patently not even wrong that only highly educated people could be tricked into taking them seriously - often quite a fun way of short-circuiting people putting them forward is ask them what their prior on using an argument/linguistic tool like this was likely to generate useful information about the universe. A surprising number of people will immediately get the point. So many ways for determined people to confuse themselves, with the addition of the formal-looking logic being the perfect poison to trick people into thinking that there's some kind of precision or necessary truth being produced.
Hi, Joe, I am a Spanish speaker but I really enjoy your content. I wanted to present an argument against classical theism based on the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God and see what you think or how classical theists might respond. I apologize in advance if my English is not the best. Anyway, here it goes and I hope it makes sense: Definitions: - Incommunicable attributes (IA): They cannot have imitations _ad extra_ and are possessed only by God, such as infinity (in any form considered), essential eternity, immensity, absolute simplicity, absolute immutability. - Communicable attributes (CA): They have imitations _ad extra_ (outward) and are also possessed by us, such as wisdom, will, active potency, freedom, life, knowledge. Argument: 1. If we participate in God, then we must participate in all of God's attributes, because in Him, all His attributes are the same God (DDS), and we participate in God. For example, if we participate and have to some degree the Justice of God, we necessarily also participate and have to some degree the Mercy of God, since Justice and Mercy are the same in God (and Justive and Mercy are the same too), and so with the other attributes. 2. But if this is so, then we should also have, at least to some degree, incommunicable attributes, such as immutability or His creative power, for they are also in God. 3. But it is impossible for us to have, even to any degree, these attributes, for they belong only to God, being precisely incommunicable. 4. Therefore, it is impossible for us to participate in God in general, for as stated in (1), if we participate in God, then we must participate in _all_ of God's attributes. 5. But classical theism claims that we participate in God. 6. Therefore, classical theism is false.
I love arguments from theism and from atheism. I just love philosophy and I am a christian but I try to be as honest as possible because atheism/agnosticism has some strong cases. Now i want to analyze your argument mainly on point 1 (as the rest of your argument seems to be contingent on it).First, I need a definition of "participate in God", as classical theism, according to my understanding, stated that we are created in the image of God, but that only implies the nature of how the being operates and not necesssarily its atributes. For example, if a human created an AI in a humans image, the only implication is that it will behave like a human. You need to define the charactetistics then of both the human and the AI, and also consider that if the human doesnt have a charactetistic that the robot does have, it doesnt necesssarily mean that the robot wasnt created in Gods image. Therefore, we dont necessarily have to dictate that we have a piece of all of gods attributes
@@pjetercatsplat Thank you for your response. I also find these topics interesting. Regarding what you said, I would argue that the analogy between humans and AI isn't a very good one. I mean, there is no equivalence here because humans are not the hierarchical sustaining cause of AI (that is, AI does not participate in humans in that sense). But even if it were the case, humans are not absolutely simple, and this is important in my argument. First of all, I understand "participate" (and I believe classical theists understand it this way as well) as 'taking part in,' which is exclusive to immaterial entities. Now, one of the implications of divine simplicity, aside from the fact that God has no parts of any kind, is that all of God's attributes are numerically and ontologically the same thing (that is, God Himself). And this is the reason why, in the first premise, I affirm that if we participate in God, we would have to participate _in all of God's attributes_ because there is no real distinction between them under this doctrine of classical theism. Thus, for example, if we participate in God's Justice, since Justice in God is identified with and identical to, for example, His creative power, then we should also participate in His creative power, which is false because the latter is an incommunicable attribute. I hope I have made myself clearer now. Thanks again.
@@marianoaguilar9517 Thank you for your reply as well. Regarding the AI analogy, that is what I was saying, humans arent the hierarchial sustaining cause of AI, but we did create them. They participate "in us" via the fact that they act like how they were programmed to do so. In the same way, God created us, but programmed us basically to have a choice. Though I see the point you are making. I would disagree with you on the part where God's attributes are the same. If the attributes are the same in God, does this mean that they must be the same when expressed through something else? Furthermore, I think what youre talking about, if im not mistaken, is that God is simple and so the expression of each individual attribute, if expressed by God, must then be expressed by all of God. That is not necessarily so though. If God chose to express himself with attributes that are like him, but created to be seperated from him (as in he created a concept for humans that is an identical copy but programmed to be adapted to humans for the specific reason stated that we cannot have all of Gods attributes) would this still be an issue? Thanks
@@pjetercatsplat Thank you for your reply. Returning to your analogy of AI, in us, as composite beings who do not cause essentially, there is no problem in "imparting" certain attributes of ourselves to AIs and not others. However, in God, as I have been arguing, things are different because divine simplicity does imply that all attributes in God are one and the same (God Himself, His very essence). Denying this would basically be denying classical theism or at least Thomism. In any case, one could adopt non-classical positions to solve this problem. But what I was trying to argue is that under this doctrine of classical theism, it does not seem possible for God to be "selective" about which "parts" or specific attributes to impart, because everything in God is ontologically the same, and the distinctions we make between His attributes are, according to classical theism, merely rational distinctions, a mere formality.
@@marianoaguilar9517 Thank you for your reply. I see what youre saying now. That makes more sense. However, If we use the example of dimensions in mathematics, dimensions get increasingly simpler as the laws of nature can be expressed more and more in their "natural" form. As the dimensions get higher and simpler, however, there becomes more distinct attributes to them. For example (3 dimensions include height width and length, 4 dimensions include 3 dimensions plus time, etc etc.) Yet each dimension becomes simpler. Does that make sense? And does that sort of answer your question about divine simplicity?
Joseph you may have broken my brain. I think I've learned two things. 1: Demand a symmetry breaker. 2: Figure out how it demonstrates P*. Stopping for now.
Hey Joe. Just wanted to say hi from someone who was at Purdue around the same time as you. Am only just now getting into more formal philosophy so it’s interesting to be hearing it from someone who was in the same place I was! Thanks for the time working on this.
5.1 The Presumption of Possibility In analyzing this presumption, we need to distinguish between the idea of possibility and contingent possibility. A proposition is contingently possible if it is contingent; that is if it is true in at least one possible world and false in at least one possible world, or equivalently, if it is both possibly true and possible false, or if it is neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. In formal modal logic, a proposition is possibly true if it is either contingently possibly true or necessarily true. This can be confusing, as in common usage when we say something is possible, we typically are thinking of contingent possibility. In a discussion, I once said “It is possible 2+2=4.” Someone objected, saying, “No, it’s not merely possible 2+2=4, it’s necessarily true 2+2=4.” I explained that while in informal usage we might think of possibility as meaning contingent possibility, in formal modal logic a proposition is possible if it is either contingently possible or necessarily true. And assuming mathematical truths are necessary truths, while it is not contingently possible 2+2=4, it is necessarily true 2+2=4, and so in the language of formal modal logic we can say it is possible 2+2=4, as odd as that might sound. With that in mind, when we say we should presume a proposition is possible absent a good reason for holding otherwise, are we thinking of necessity or contingent possibility? If we grant it is possible unicorns exist absent a good reason otherwise, is it because we think it reasonable to grant it is contingently possible unicorns exist absent a reason to do otherwise, or because we think it reasonable to grant unicorns exist and couldn’t possibly not exist absent a good reason for thinking otherwise? I think the answer is obvious. If we grant it is possible unicorns exist absent a good reason otherwise, we are really granting it is contingently possible unicorns exist. Of course, as a logical consequence, we are also granting either it is contingently possible unicorns exist or it is necessarily true unicorns exist, but that is in no way because we think we should grant it is necessarily true unicorns exist absent a good reason otherwise. That would be silly. With this in mind, we should replace this presumption with “The Presumption of Contingent Possibility” or “The Presumption of Contingency.” We should grant a proposition is contingent, absent a good reason not to. And I think in this form, the principle is reasonable. Without it, how will we ever grant any proposition is contingent? There is no logical way to demonstrate any proposition is contingent. Perhaps every true statement is necessarily true, and every false statement is impossible. Perhaps the appearance of metaphysical contingency is illusory. Perhaps the universe is exactly as it had to be (the best of all possible worlds, as Leibnitz said). There’s no way to prove or demonstrate that’s not the case. Ultimately, the only way to argue a proposition is contingent is to argue it does not appear to be necessary (meaning necessarily true or necessarily false). So, I think we need this principle or at least something like it if we’re ever going to say, even provisionally, that some proposition is contingent. The presumption of contingent possibility cannot be used to justify the main premise of the MOA. This principle tells us that we should assume it is contingently possible a perfect being exists unless we have a good reason not to. But we do have a good reason not to. It’s logically impossible it could be metaphysically contingently possible a perfect being exists. And I would argue it would be silly to say that since it isn’t contingently possible a perfect being exists, we should therefore assume it’s true and couldn’t be false a perfect being exists absent some good reason not to do so. The same goes for the main premise of the reverse MOA; we have a good reason to assume it is not contingently possible no perfect being exists, but that does not give us reason to assume it is necessarily true no perfect being exists absent a good reason not to. But the presumption of contingent possibility does apply to the following argument: Premise 1. It is contingently possible an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being exists. Conclusion. No perfect being exists. The above argument is valid. If a perfect being is defined to be a necessary omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being, then if a perfect being exists it must be necessarily true an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being exists; it cannot be merely contingently possible. So, the presumption of contingent possibility tells us, absent a good reason not to do so, we should presume it is contingently possible an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being exists, and therefore no perfect being exists. Can we restore the symmetry? Can we come up with an argument that leads from the contingent possibility of some sentence to the existence of a perfect being? I came up with the following: Premise 1. The proposition “A perfect being exists and Joe Biden is the 45th President of the U.S.” is contingent. Conclusion. A perfect being exists. This satisfies my requirement. If no perfect being exists, the sentence “A perfect being exists and Joe Biden is the 45th President of the U.S.” is impossible, not contingent, so the argument is valid. The sentence “No perfect being exists or Joe Biden is the 45th President of the U.S.” would also work. Nonetheless, I don’t think this is satisfying at restoring symmetry. My example seems highly artificial. Perhaps we should modify our presumption to something like, “we should assume a sentence which does not contain any modal operators (directly or indirectly) is contingently possible, unless we have a good reason not to.” This may require more thought. Edit: For me, the argument from the contingency of an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being to the nonexistence of a perfect being is an interesting, but secondary point. The main point I wish to argue, is that the presumption of possibility is better understood as the presumption of contingent possibility, and if this is granted then it is evident why it cannot be used to support the main premise of the MOA.
I've been thinking a lot about possibilities, possible worlds included. Based on some of those thoughts, I've got a criticism against MOAs (which tries to undercut the possibility premise). While the specific criticism in mind doesn't feature in the video, it's nice to see other points of view about MOAs --- and in great detail, too! Cool vid
I never understood "ought implies can" - I understand why "can't" defeats "ought", so I could get behind "ought requires can", but I don't see that having the force of implication.
In formal logic, P implies Q means something slightly different than what it means in informal use. It means in principle it cannot be the case we could have both P and not Q. If the truth of P leads to the truth of Q, then it cannot be the case that P is true and Q is false; so P implies Q is true. If P requires Q to be true to be true itself, then it cannot be the case that P is true and Q is false, so again it is the case that P implies Q. In formal logic, P implies Q, If P then Q, P only if Q, if not Q then not P, P cannot be true unless Q is true, are all logically equivalent. Formal logic does not distinguish between them. Formal logic does not capture the nuances of cause and effect and time that we have in natural language. The MOA tells us if it's possible a MGB exists then a MGB exists. It also tells us that it cannot be possible a MGB exists unless a MGB exists. The advocate of the MOA may wish to emphasize the first of these two statements, while the skeptic may wish to emphasize the second. But formal logic does not distinguish between the two.
In order to establish foundations: 3:47 SOMETHING IS METAPHYSICALLY POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE WHEN IT might...BE TRUE - IN OTHER WORLDS. Who can explain what this means?
This is a minor technical point, but I thought you might find it amusing. Using the axiom system B instead of S5 in the MOA, we cannot conclude that if it is possible a MGB exists then a MGB exists. We can only conclude that if it is possible a MGB exists then a MEB exists. To see this, consider a possible worlds model consisting of three worlds, A, C, and D, where A is the actual world. Suppose every world is accessible from itself (the accessibility relation is reflexive). Suppose A is accessible from C and C is accessible from A, and A is accessible from D and D is accessible from A (the accessibility relation is symmetric). However the accessibility relation is not transitive (D is accessible from A and A is accessible from C, but D is not accessible from C). This is a possible worlds model appropriate to the axiom system B, but not to S5. Again, A is the actual world. Suppose a MEB exists in worlds A and C, but not in D (and it is the same MEB in every world it exists). Within C, it is true that the MEB exists necessarily, because it exists in every world accessible from C. So the proposition "A MGB exists" is true within C. Since C is accessible from A, within A it is true that "It is possible a MGB exists." But within A, it is possible the MEB does not exist, because it does not exist in D which is accessible from A. And so within A it is not true that a MGB exists; it is only true that a MEB exists. So working in the axiom system B, it could be true that it is possible a MGB exists but false that a MGB exists; however it would still be true a MEB exists.
Supposing that the Necessary Being 'exists' and that it is complex rather than simple, do you think something that intrinsically exists in a contingent way, e.g. a human consciousness (supposing that it could persist after death), could "merge" with the Necessary Being, and thereby go from being essentially contingent to necessary (necessary within and by virtue of being a part of Necessary Being)? In other words, a transfer of modes from existing in contingent form to a necessary form while retaining distinctions. I hope my question is clear. Thanks for another great video!
In the modal ontological we define our terms and choose to work in a modality such that it cannot be possible a MGB exists unless a MGB exists. Of course once we've made these decisions, it follows that if it is possible a MGB exists then a MGB exists. But then it equally follows that if we wish to show it is possible a MGB exists then we must show a MGB exists, making the argument useless for justifying a belief in God. That's really all there is to it.
I have always wondered to what extent the philosophical views of the authors affect the reviews they give in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. How are the authors even selected?
I think since the premises of the theist's argument are related, when we make one premise of it negative, we should change other premises into negative too or else it would be like turning 2+2=4 into -2+2=0 and suggesting that "oh I have refuted 2+2=4". If our goal is balancing, then we should make both of the premises negative because the right balanced corolary is -2-2=-4 or 1) Possibly God does not exist 2) Necessarily if God does not exist, it is possible that God does not exist 3) Therefore it is possible that God does not exist. Since possibility of God's non-existence in the first premise leads to a fallacy of begging the question in the conclusion, there is no such possibility! As you can see, we have changed both premises into negative. Since most theists would reject your first premise, then if we want to counterbalance it by making the first premise of the argument negative, we should make the second premise of the theist's argument negative too; otherwise it seems like a double standard to change the first premise of theist's argument but hold the second premise the same.(because the positivity in the first and second premises are concomitantly interdependent).
If god is impossible (not possible) then his existence is logically impossible and logical impossiblites are for example stuff that's inconsistent but we know that god (the nesscry being) is consistent therefore god Is not impossible
@@goldenarm2118 What is gibberish about it? I am saying if you want to change one premise then you should change the other premise accordingly because the premises are related. We might be accused of ignoring the relation between premises, if we change our favorite premise and hold the other constant! To make it more clear consider this analogy that scientists give about metric expansion. They say the expanding space with stars in it are like a growing cake with raisins in it. They reduce both space and stars to cake and raisins. They never give an analogy of 'raisins in the sky' or 'stars in the cake'! Because when they change one factor of the main topic (namely expanding space into cake) they change the other too (namely stars into raisins). Similarly when you reduce one premise of ontological argument into "does not exist" we have to change the other premise too. Otherwise our own objection would problematic not the ontological argument. Let me give you another analogy. consider a seesaw as the symbol of balancing. When you say "A goes up", the right balanced corollary is "B goes down" not 'B goes up' or 'A goes down'. Similarly when the ontological argument says "God necessarily exists" the right corolary is "evil does not exist" not 'evil exist' or 'God does not exist'.
26:00 I might have a simple simmetry breaker to give the advantage to 1*. The empity world is a metaphysically possible world. It's conceivable, non contradictory, and if we see "world" as "set" even foundational to set theory that there's such a thing as an empity set or world. And if an empity world is possible, there's at least one possible world with no god, hence the possibility that god doesn't exist has at least one metaphisically possible instance.
@@TheSurpremeLogician how so? What IN an empty world would produce a contradiction? The very thought of something IN an empty world is incoherent, to have that produce a contradiction would be absurd. And if we have a world that is conceivable, consistent and foundational to various disciplines, how can you ever say it's not possible?
I disagree with the first objection to presumption of possibility symmetry breaker. Non existence of God would in my opinion be equal to saying that Gods existence is impossible. Since the impossibility of something requires some reason for it to be impossible like the properties of that being being contradictory
I’m still listening to your video, but I have a few thoughts. Recall that Plantinga defines a MEB to be a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Plantinga then defines a MGB to be a MEB that exists as a MEB in every possible world. What must we do to establish the main premise of Plantinga’s MOA? What must we do to establish it is possible a MGB exists? Working in the possible worlds model of S5, we must establish there is a possible world in which it is true a MGB exists. What must we do to establish it is true a MGB exists within some possible world? We must establish that within some possible world, there is an entity that satisfies the definition of a MGB. What must we do to establish a given entity in a possible world satisfies the definition of a MGB? We must establish that given entity is a MEB that exists in every possible world as a MEB, including the actual world, because that is how we have defined a MGB. If we can do that, then we can establish the main premise of the MOA. But of course if we can do that, we don’t need the MOA. This is the problem with the MOA. It gives us the illusion it makes things easier. I no longer have to verify a MEB exists in the actual world, I need only verify there is a possible world in which a being having the properties of a MGB exists. But to verify a being in a possible world has the properties of a MGB, I must verify it exists in every possible world as a MEB, including the actual world, because that is the definition a MGB. The advocate of the MOA ends up saying, “I’m not saying a MEB exists in the actual world. I’m only saying that there is a possible world in which there exists a MEB that has the property of existing as a MEB in every possible world including the actual world.” It's actually more difficult to establish that an entity in a possible world has the properties of a MGB, than it is to establish a MEB exists in the actual world. On the other hand, what would a skeptic who wishes to establish its possible no MGB exists need to do? That is a difficult question. However, there is something we can say for certain. For the skeptic to establish it is possible no MGB exists, it is sufficient to establish no MEB exists. Now I’m not saying the skeptic can establish no MEB exists. That’s not my point. What I’m saying is the MOA places no additional burden on the skeptic. Originally, the skeptic is expected to establish no MEB exists. To the extent they are successful at doing so, they will be at least as successful at demonstrating it is impossible a MGB exists, because we have defined our terms and chosen to work in a modality such that the latter is a logical consequence of the former. To the extent the skeptic was able to establish no MEB exists before the MOA, they are automatically at least as successful at establishing no MGB exists given the MOA, because we have defined our terms and chosen to work in a modality such that if no MEB exists then it is impossible a MGB exists. To the extent the skeptic was able to establish we have no good reason to suppose a MEB exists before the MOA, they are automatically at least as successful at establishing we have no good reason to suppose it is possible a MGB exists given the MOA, because we have defined our terms and chosen to work in a modality such that it cannot logically be the case it is metaphysically possible a MGB exists unless a MEB exists. Whether they are able to demonstrate no MEB exists or not, the MOA places no additional burden on the skeptic. The skeptic can safely ignore the MOA, and it will not change the plausibility of any of their results. The MOA is empty of persuasive force. The MOA proves that if no MEB exists, then it is impossible a MGB exists. People frequently misinterpret this to conclude the MOA places a burden on the skeptic to prove it is impossible a MGB exists. But this is because we usually naturally interpret possibility and impossibility as epistemic possibility and impossibility (as modeled in the axiom system S4). In this modality, something is impossible if it can be proven or demonstrated or known to be impossible. But the MOA assumes we are working in the modality of S5, where saying something is impossible does not necessarily mean it is knowably or provably or demonstrably impossible. In the MOA, if no MEB exists, the reason it will be impossible a MGB exists is because no being within any possible world will satisfy the definition of a MGB, because that definition requires it to exist as a MEB in every possible world, including the actual world. There is nothing in the MOA to suggest that if no MEB exists, that someone will be able to know or demonstrate or prove no MEB exists. There is nothing in the MOA to suggest that if no MEB exists, then someone will be able to prove or know or demonstrate no MGB exists. There is nothing in the MOA to suggest that if no MEB exists then there will fail to be symmetry breakers somehow favoring the possibility of some MGB existing over the possibility of no MGB existing. If no MEB exists then it will be impossible a MGB exists purely because (a) No MEB exists, (b) We’ve defined a MGB to be a necessarily existing MEB that is necessarily a MEB, and (c) we are working in S5; absolutely no other reason is needed. This is what we mean when we say the MOA assumes we are working with metaphysical possibility and impossibility. This is why the MOA, whether it is sound or not, is completely empty of any persuasive power.
Can I ask a question? If we consider existence itself as the beginning, even within an infinite chain of causation and dependency, everything necessitates existence due to the presence of existence itself. Reality depends fundamentally on the existence of existence in some form, making reality contingent. Therefore, existence itself, being the only necessary being, acts as the ultimate cause of everything and must exist in every conceivable world. It is logically impossible for non-existence to cause its own existence. This can be used to argue that existence cannot be an abstract object because it can cause, suggesting instead that existence is a non-physical mind. Furthermore, existence is posited as all-powerful and all-good in all possible worlds, but I'm not going to delve deeper into this. What is your response to this?
Are we sure it is a symmetrical relation to need symmetrical breaking? Symmetrical relations are two-way and the two sides have the same value. But does existence have the same weight as non-existence? To me this assymetrical mindmap: non-existence
I've been thinking that this argument can be used on existance or reality itself. We tend to view reality as separeted in discrete objects, phenomena and regions. But that separation is a feature of our interpretation, reality can be equaly viewd as a single continuous substance, making it an unified whole. The scientific model of matter describes it as such; there is no iron or oxygen, there's only different arrangements of elemental particles, iron is the name we give to when a bigger bunch of quarks and electrons, oxygen is a smaller bunch. if we assume an experience centered view, then we still view reality as a continuum of first person experiences. With reality being then a unified whole, if there's an attribute of a part of it, it then is also an attribute of the whole. For example, if my arm can grab a ball, then it's obviously true that I can grab a ball. If my liver produces enzymes, then I have those enzymes. So then, if I know that the sky is blue, "reality" knows that the sky is blue. "Reality" knows everything there is to know then. The same can be said to potency, if you have the potency to do X, then "reality" has the potency to do X. Reality is omnipotent. Moral perfection seems to be merely a construct of our minds. But even in this case, the knowledge we have of such construct, and the potency that we have to achieve some result on that, is also transferable to the whole of reality. In this view the argument gains a whole new meaning. Instead of a proof of some external being. It becomes an almost tautological description of rality, if not for that fact that it proves reality itself to be a necessary entity, and so in no need of creation. It becomes a proof of the autonomous nature of reality and lack of necessity of external being creating it. It make quite a lot of sense then. If it is possible for reality to exist, than it must, because it makes absolutely no sense to talk of a possible world in which Reality doesn't exist. A possible world assumes existance, so a possible world of non existance is a contradiction. We can conclude that it is impossible for reality to not exist. Since it makes no sense to say that non existance may exist, it is impossible for there to be a state of non existance, and so, the only possible alternative is for existance.
I still don't understand the difference (according to this video) between metaphysical possibility and metaphysically necessity. Can someone please explain the similarities and differences?
Well, the Goldbach conjecture does indeed seem to be true. It has been shown to hold for all integers less than 4*10^18, mathematicians have proved a lot of partial results, and there are also strong heuristic justifications for it. Euler himself regarded it «as a completely certain theorem». It is true that the conjecture has not been proven (at least not yet), but it seems overwhelmingly more probable that the conjecture is true than that the conjecture is false.
There’s a funny asymmetry with respect to the symmetry breakers concerning incoherency arguments; if the defender of incoherency arguments is successful they’ve defeated the MOA (and theism generally), however, if the defender of the MOA defeats incoherency arguments they still have the burden of defending the (metaphysical) possibility premise (assuming metaphysical modality is legit to begin with).
You could’ve covered incoherency arguments in this if you wanted to make it more comprehensive but it’s great work as it stands, & maybe you’ll dedicate a 10 hour video to incoherency arguments anyway 😎
In defense of the deontic symmetry breaker: We can avoid the objection from God-incompatible goods by modifying the "good implies can" principle to "pro toto good implies can" and if anything good prevents God from existing, it may not be pro toto good because it prevents this very great good of God existing
Excellent suggestion! :) One potential countermove is to try to focus on God-incompatible seemingly *pro toto* goods. For instance, consider impersonal conceptions of utlimate realities that are directed toward producing things of value in the same way God is. Examples might include certain axiarchic veiws (where the relevant impersonal ultimate reality is, e.g., the cosmos a la Philip Goff) impersonal conceptions of the Form of the Good, etc.
@@MajestyofReason Is that at all related to the the way Quentin Smith referred to the "world-whole" (the sum total of reality/the universe) as the greatest good, or that which should demand the most awe and such from us?
Necessary state of a perfect being lack limits , contingent state (His volitional actions )of perfect being have limits which controls the creation that have limit Hence Perfect being has full control/providence over creation Limit (in contingent state)is explained by necessary state of God (non-contrastive ,non entailing ,without violating PSR)
I would argue that it does violate PSR (or rather, I would go even more stringent with the PSR) as it seems like God could have created some other form of creation instead. So what's the sufficient reason for this actual creation rather than another?
@@georgeel-azar4684 sure , The strongest version of PSR and Sufficient Reason(used by Leibniz ,Ibn Sina etc..) demand a entailing , contrastive explanation But the version the contemporary proponents such as Pruss,Josh , Samuel Clark,Timothy O Connor ,Richard gale ,Christopher Tomaszewski etc.. use doesn’t demand or require that I meant their version of PSR is not violated
I don't mean this to be offensive to the field in any way, but what counts as "research" in philosophy? Is it not just reading and thinking about things?
I'm not a philosopher but a mathematician. I'd posit research in philosophy is exactly like any other field of human endeavour. That is, presenting new information in a way that furthers our previous understanding. As far as I understand, that's all any scientist, scholar, heck HUMAN is trying to do. As an edit, I think "reading and thinking about things" sounds reductive, but I understand your sentiment. Just note that this is practically what research is (in any scholarly field), but doesn't capture what research does
You say "By the characteristic axiom of S5, ⋄□p-->□p." I don't think this is quite right. The 5 Axiom which corresponds to a Euclidean accessibility relationship says ⋄p implies □⋄p. You need to do a bit of work to show ⋄□p-->□p is a consequence of S5, so I don't think it is rightfully labeled as a "characteristic axiom". In fact, it really isn't even a standard axiom, it is usually a theorem, meaning it is deducible from the empty set here.
Thanks for the comment! I tend to view this as a semantic dispute. Given that accessibility is an equivalence relation, the formulation I gave is logically equivalent to the formulation you gave. If we want to privilege one as ‘the characteristic axiom’, that’s alright; but I don’t think there’s any principled reason to privilege one over the other (other than, perhaps, one of them commonly being referred to as ‘the characteristic axiom’, although I’ve seen both introduced together as equivalent formulations of the S5 axiom). The reason I chose the one I did is pedagogical: it’s much easier for a video like this to introduce it as an axiom rather than introduce something else and then derive the other in a way that would easily lose the audience.
@@MajestyofReason Fair enough. By "characteristic axiom" I thought you were referring to 5. There are tons of ways of formulating it. But I like the way you guys put it in the SEP better "By S5, ◊□p→□p." The only reason I guess to choose 1 axiom over the others is that they correspond to certain accessibility relationships that have philosophical importance. Like Hugh Chandler critiques transitivity.
You describe epistemic possibility as the modality where something is possible if it is possible “for all that we know.” But that is only one form of epistemic possibility. In the axiom system S4, we may start with a set of propositions that are taken apriori to be necessarily true, together with any logical tautologies. Then anything that can be logically proven from these are also necessarily true. Anything that can be proven to be impossible is impossible. Finally, anything that is not impossible is possible. This is an epistemic modality, because it is a modality of, not what is known, but what is in principle knowable. To say something is possibly true in this modality is not to say that it is true “for all that we know,” but rather we cannot in principle prove it is false. The axiom system S4 has actually been used in mathematics, to capture the idea of provability. Mathematicians have used S4 as a tool for proving the continuum hypothesis cannot be proven to be true or to be false using the other axioms of set theory (see “Set Theory and the Continuum Problem” by Smullyan and Fitting). If we are mathematical Platonists (as I am), we could say that a statement in mathematics is metaphysically necessarily true in the sense of S5 if it is true (because all statements in mathematics are metaphysically non-contingent) and epistemically necessarily true in the sense of S4 if it in principle can be proven to be true (regardless of whether or not anyone has in fact proven it). Godel’s incompleteness theorem suggests there are statements in mathematics that are true but which cannot in principle be proven to be true (perhaps Goldbach's conjecture is an example of such a statement, but we do not know that). Such statements would be metaphysically necessarily true, but not epistemically necessarily true. The biggest challenge I had in studying the MOA was making sense of the difference between the epistemic modality modeled by S4 and the metaphysical modality modeled by S5. Seeing how it worked in mathematics was a big help.
Of course the argument works. P1. That something is impossible is a stronger claim than that something is possible. P2. All stronger claims demand stronger evidence than weaker claims. C. Therefore the claim that something is impossible demands stronger evidence than that something is possible.
To run the reverse modal ontological argument, one does not need to claim God is impossible. One only needs to claim that God's non-existence is *possible* You might as well say that the reverse argument works because the theist is committed to the claim that God's non-existence is *impossible* whereas the non-theist need only claim that God's non-existence is *possible*
@@MajestyofReasonGod’s non-existence being possible is equivalent to his impossibility. So to say it is possible that God doesn’t exist is to say that God is impossible.
@@TheSurpremeLogician But equally, God's existence being possible is equivalent to his necessity. So to say it is possible that God exists is to say that God is necessary. And that is *not* a weaker claim than that God is impossible. (In fact, claiming that God is necessary is equivalent to claiming that God's non-existence is impossible -- i.e., an impossibility claim.)
@@MajestyofReason God’s existence being possible is in fact equivalent to his necessity, but possible necessity isn’t a stronger claim than impossibility.
@@TheSurpremeLogician Sure, it's not a *stronger* claim; I never said it was. The point is that the claims are *equally strong* , and so there's no advantage to the modal ontological argument here. In that case, the argument doesn't work -- at least, not for the reason you specify (that it makes a weaker claim).
6:00 The video asserts that metaphysical reality is different than logical possibility. He asserts that "water is H2O and couldn't be H3O." He says it is logically possible that water could be H3O. i disagree and think this is absurd.
‘1+1=2’ is necessarily true and, therefore, possibly true. (It’s not impossible! So it’s possible.) But ‘1+1=2’ is not possibly false. So possibly true =/= possibly false
For 1:15:55 you defined positive properties. Is this the formalized notion of how Anderson defined positive properties in his "Amendations of the Godel Argument" paper? If not, what is the way you define positive* and positive' in Latex?
@@MajestyofReason So, I believe it is the 2014 paper "Is God's Existence Possible?". The definition given is: "A property P is a perfection just in case P in no way detracts from the greatness of any being in which it inheres and P, its complement, does." You seem to argue, however, this is ambiguous (1:15:49). Rightly said. So you define positive* and positive'. These I cannot find in the paper, so I decided to try to translate it myself. I would like to ask if this is a reasonable formalization of your definitions, or did you have something else in mind (apologies if it is technical): \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{amssymb} Define S:= $\{\psi: (\models \lnot\phi) \implies \Box\forall x(\phi(x) ightarrow \psi(x))\}$ .\\ "$\models \lnot\phi$" means that $\lnot\phi$ is true.
ewline P* := $Positive^*(\phi) \iff (\forall x) (\forall \psi \in S)[\lnot \psi (x) \implies (\phi(x) ightarrow \phi$ does not detract from the greatness of x)].
ewline P' := $Positive'(\phi) \iff (\forall x) [\phi(x) ightarrow \phi$ does not detract from the greatness of x]. ^Putting this in the website domain "tlhiv" with suffix "org", extension "/ltxpreview/" will make the TeX legible. The website is by Troy Henderson. Otherwise, you can plug it into your preferred tex editor. I am unsure if you can add links in comments. --------------------------------------------------------------- As a side note: good trump impression (I didnt catch that on viewing). Tremendous, one of the best, I tell you- truly great this guy: Joe Schmid! Gotta love him.
@@MajestyofReason To clarify, I believe it is important to formalize these notions. Being that Godel's original argument was formalized, it would be in his spirit to advance the merits or objections to his argument with formalized reasoning. One cannot, however, tell others how they ought to formalize their statements. English is ambiguous and you may have several formalizations of a given sentence, and some may skew from the intent of the author. A problem one may foresee with this is that the objections in the video- similar to Oppys- may not work (For a rigorous disproof of some of Oppy's claim see et al. Bentzmuller and Paleo's work on proof checking). I asked if it was Anderson, as the definition given here (in the video) sounds similar to the Anderson one which has been formalized. And, as it turns out, the definition implies the axioms of Anderson's framework, which invariably prove God possibly exists. I will now restate my formalization that is not latex friendly but more legible on a UA-cam comment: Define S:= {psi: |= not phi => Box\forall x(phi(x) -> psi(x)} "|= not phi" means that "not phi" is true. P* := Positive*(phi) iff (\forall x) (\forall psi in S)[not psi (x) => (phi(x) -> "phi does not detract from the greatness of x")] P' := Positive'(phi) iff (\forall x) [phi(x) -> "phi does not detract from the greatness of x"]. ---------- Box means the modal operator "Necessarily". --------- I leave my replies here.
@@dddd-te5dg I don’t quite understand the symbolism you’re using, unfortunately! Apologies. I don’t quite know what ‘phi’ and ‘psi’ stand for (propositional constants? Predicate symbols? If the latter, how could ‘not phi’ be true? A negated predicate symbol doesn't seem truth-apt. If the former, how could propositional constants take arguments?); the use of the semantic entailment sign is confusing to me; I don’t know what ’S’ is supposed to be; and there are other elements that are confusing to me. (I’m also not very familiar with LaTeX, which probably isn’t helping me!) It’s worth noting that we can run my criticism without trying to formalize positivity* and positivity’. In fact, we needn't even mention these notions. For we can run my criticism as follows. A positive property is originally defined as a property which doesn’t detract from greatness. If we let ‘D’ be the predicate ‘detracts from greatness’ and ‘P’ be the predicate ‘is a positive property’, we get the following definition of positive property: Def(positive property): ∀x (Px ~Dx) My dilemma is then the following: when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness - and consequently when assessing whether a property is positive, given Def(positive property) - we either take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion, or we don’t. If we take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness, then the positivity premise (according to which [being God], or [being perfect], or [being God-like], or [being omnipotent], or etc. is positive) is both dialectically inappropriate and unmotivated (to me, at least). In that case, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists. If we *don’t* take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness, then the non-entailment premise (according to which positive properties don’t entail negative properties) is both dialectically inappropriate and unmotivated (to me, at least). In that case, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists. Either way, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists. This is perhaps a simpler and better way to explain my criticism than going through all the hoopla about positivity* and positivity’. It also avoids having to formalize those notions (which I think can be done, it would just take me a while to sit down and do it carefully).
@@MajestyofReason Ah yes, that is understandable. I was worried for such a possibility and I will clarify now. My apologies. So phi and psi are symbols to represent an arbitrary property. phi(x) might be interpreted as "x is red" or "x is tall". x is a variable symbol for any person, rock, entity, etc. 'S" is its own term. So the expression "S:=" means you are assigning a meaning to the symbol S, where the meaning is the right of ":=". Essentially here I am trying to define a set of all psi which is "metaphysically entailed by phi by explosion". S is the set of all properties where if "phi" is false, then psi is metaphysically entiled by phi. I believe I interpreted your idea of "metaphysical entailment" correctly. You gave two definitions which seemed to be equivalent to my idea of "Box forall x (phi(x) then psi(x))". As to the argument: the definition of positivity being in relation to defectiveness seems akin to Anderson's definition of positivity in his paper "Emendations of the Godel Ontological Argument". They are premises (B1) and (B2). As for the "metaphysical entails by explosion" dilemma. I would actually be inclined to accepted entailment by explosion. So, I wanted to make sure I formalized your argument correctly so I am careful... but it sounds like this "entailment by explosion" is simply a "vacuous truth". In mathematics, this idea that "if p then q" is always true if the ancedent p is false, is abused and used all the time. It might actually follow from the Gentzen rules and axioms for logic, in addition to the Hilbert axioms- which is the groundwork for all classical logic. I know truth tables show this is true. I believe the truth tables are equivalent to the axioms for logic, though. As for your proposed definition, I will try playing around with that and see what I get. I would suggest learning LaTeX. I learn from experience and practice. "Overleaf" and "TexStudio" are my go to IDEs (platforms) for using it. I would ask you to read page 312 of the article "Godel's Ontological proofs and its variants" by Peter Hajek. I would use the website "libgen" to get the book the article is contained in. The book is named "Kurt Godel and the Foundations of Mathematics" I feel as though this is incorrect, as he gives a 3 line proof that God possibly exists in that article. The only issue whether or not these axioms are consistent with what "positive actually means". This is amiable as an objection, because the literature I've read has yet to define positive (or test the definition), aside from maybe Anderson's article I already referenced. I wished to see a formalization of your definition of positive to see if it stands to work against or with the argument. I will now consider this" ∀x (Px ~Dx)"
What does this mean? I'm a theist. Can you expound on your comment. I'm listening to this video slowly so as to consume its points; which means i haven't listened to the whole video.
@@goldenarm2118 The point is, if MOA is any good, so is reverse MOA. So we have two equally good arguments that lead to conclusions that negate each other. Or to put it a bit differently from the video, you can have a modal ontological argument for naturalism. Possibly, naturalism is true. Necessarily, if naturalism is true, then it is necessary that naturalism is true. Hence, it is necessary that naturalism is true. It mutes the theist in the sense that the naturalist/atheist has an equally good argument in his arsenal, so MOA doesn't give any advantage to the theist.
@@anteodedi8937 Thank you. You have expounded on your original comment and I think I understand your point of view. I will watch the rest of the video and message. Thank you so much for responding to my question.
@@anteodedi8937 The issue I find with this version is that making the case for a naturalistic/godless universe being necessary requires more supporting argumentation, and is less intuitive, than making the case for a perfect being being necessary. I'd go with Schmid's rMOA as such.
@@georgeel-azar4684 And why would that be less intuitive? I would say a perfect being, i.e., a being that possesses qualities like power, knowledge, and goodness to the greatest degree of conceivability has to be maximally complex and contingent. We see from experience that the closer a being is to perfection, the more complex and contingent it is. That's how evolution of anything works. Things get better with time and more steps. Putting a perfect being right at the start and ascribing necessity to it gets existence backwards.
I can never get past the definition of the greatest possible being. Why wouldn't the greatest being have all possible attributes rather than just some? Take omnipotence, for example. Just like it's supposedly greater to actually exist than to not exist, it seems to me it's greater to actually wield all possible powers than to either not possess them or for some powers to be only latent. Then we get something like this: God is the greatest possible being. The greatest possible being wields all possible powers. The powers to do good and evil exist. God wields the powers of good and evil. The same would go for every other conceivable attribute. My intuition tells me this sort of all-encompassing God would be vastly more powerful, perfect, and necessary than the measly tri-Omni God. Certainly, this God is better "suited to the present appearances of nature." I'm guessing there's a way to formulate a modal argument along this line.
In line with what the Old Testament says about God, funnily enough. Anyway, all these modal arguments for God appear to have this problem that while they may work for a generic omniGod, they don't convincingly work for the standard Christian triune God.
Thank you for this excellent lecture, to the extent I have been able to watch, it will take some time! Already at the start I have a question. You say that if something is logically impossible, it is *also metaphysically impossible. I'm fine with there being a distinction between the two concepts, but the implication of metaphysical impossibility seems invalid to me. Why is that true? Why can't we conceive of the possibility that there are different rules of logic that provide the foundation for all of our physical laws? Are not the laws of logic, essentially just a more foundational form of physical law? So why can't those vary?
This is an excellent question. In my experience, philosophers mostly take it for granted that which logic is true doesn't vary from world to world. You're correct to press for some justification for this assumption. I'll confess that the assumption just seems pretty obvious to me. For instance, this just seems like it couldn't possibly be an invalid form of reasoning: 1. If p, then q 2. p 3. Therefore, q It seems implausible in the extreme that there's some (metaphysically) possible world in which this argument form is invalid. And most rules of inference are just as obvious as this one and seemingly just as necessary as this one. Another approach would be to argue that logical truths are conceptual truths (i.e., they're true in virtue of their constituent concepts, such as the concepts expressed by 'if...then', 'and', 'or', etc.). And it is uncontroversial that conceptual truths (e.g., all triangles have three sides) are metaphysically necessary.
@@MajestyofReason Greetings Joe you little Einstein you. I posted a comment under this video 7 hours ago and you didn't respond. Yet the OP comment in this thread was posted only 3 hours ago and you responded to their comment within an hour. What's with this selective favoritism of your responses? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you simply didn't see my comment, so maybe it's not favoritism... Or is it? Say it ain't so, Joey! One would think a boy as bright as you likes to treat all his viewers with equal consideration... Am I right? ☺
It's a long and annoying story lol. In short: my paper got two very positive referee reports from AJP and a minor revision decision. I completed my minor revisions, and -- bizarrely -- the editors sent the paper out to a *third* referee who raised (unsuccessful) objections to my paper, and the editors rejected the paper on the basis of the third referee's comments. What followed *this* was a series of rejections from journals, each based on (unsuccessful) objections from a referee. After a series of rejections like this spanning a year or two (an individual submission to a journal can take even up to a year to get a decision), I lost interest in publishing the paper. As for the next Q&A, it's probably 50k subs, but I don't know!
I have an intuition that the "great making features" theists assigned to God are kinda of arbitrary or subjective. Take Alselm's argument, for instance. A being than which no grater can be conceived will depend on our conceptions of what is greater.
This is usually bypassed by adding the qualifier of “all things held equal.” Given a general circumstance not conceived of to be of detriment to strength, is it generally better to be strong or not. Of course the former. There is also the intuition, but this criticism has been dealt with
@aydentrevaskis8390 idk man. Suppose a great making feature causes God to be logically impossible, in this case, this great making feature is actually a bad making feature. For instance, a god who is able to make triangles with 4 sides is supposedly more powerful than a god who can't do it. But the former is logically impossible, so that feature makes this kind of god impossible, and an impossible god is less great than a possible god. The example of feature i gave is obvious, but some apparently consistent feature might be logically impossible, and the contradiction just wasn't made clear yet.
I have what I think is a rebuttal to such reasoning, using a similar concept. Suppose one conceives of a greatest state of being - which I would say would be either invincibility or immortality. If we can conceive of such a state, and it is greater for it to exist in reality than in our own heads exclusively, then it must exist! And yet, we don't have any conclusive evidence, let alone proof, of either concept being real or even feasible.
I for one see no difference between a (logically) possible thing and a "really" existing thing, hence (logical) possibility = existence. The problem with proving God's existence by reason then reduces to coming up with such a definition of God that is logically consistent with everything else in reality, that is, with all other logically possible things. Once you do that, you have proved that God exists, as defined.
Omni? The very concept violates the law of noncontradiction. Something can't be Omni=all, "All good" and "all evil" at the same time. And, if you add a descriptor you have just limited the concept of Omni.
is the concept ever used that way though ? i've never encountered the omni concept without a descriptor and, yes, it seems foolish to even think that it's logical. i don't believe theists have a problem with limiting it, subsets of omni still carry the same "punch" while also being somewhat conceivable
@@ahuman4797 to quote one of favourite movie series, Spock says "to hunt a species to extinction is illogical" The main female protagonist ( sorry, can't remember her name) says "Whoever said humans are logical?" 🤔🙄😠
That's the way I feel about an allegedly "perfectly loving" and also "perfectly just" God, who, as a function of It's latter attribute, must dispense everlasting punishment.
@@MiladTabasy get a goddam dictionary, dufus! omni- [ˈämnē] combiningform all; of all things: "omniscient" · "omnifarious" in all ways or places: "omnicompetent" · "omnipresent"
This has to be the dumbest line of reasoning I have ever encountered. Just keep on inventing logic systems until you find the one that suits your needs, and then pretend you can prove something with it. "Something is possibly necessary, therefor it is necessary" ??? Come on people, are you really on that level? If you accept that, then all bets are off and you can prove anything you want.
@@MajestyofReason The problem with defining god as "the being with the best possible combination of knowledge, power, and goodness" is that this vague combination can be neither defined nor proven to exist. When debated, the definition of god always comes down to the debater's OPINION of what these characteristics are, which is based solely on intuition. Why on earth do you think you could possibly come up with a precise definition of the nature of god, which even the bible says is unknowable? What I find interesting is that this obvious weakness is listed 7th, as if it's unimportant.
Oh almighty algorithm, decider of popularity, we humbly ask you to bless Joseph Schmid today
Fun and thorough vid! These arguments always struck me as so patently not even wrong that only highly educated people could be tricked into taking them seriously - often quite a fun way of short-circuiting people putting them forward is ask them what their prior on using an argument/linguistic tool like this was likely to generate useful information about the universe. A surprising number of people will immediately get the point.
So many ways for determined people to confuse themselves, with the addition of the formal-looking logic being the perfect poison to trick people into thinking that there's some kind of precision or necessary truth being produced.
This is brilliant and huge congrats with your work in SEP with Oppy and Rasmussen!
thanks
Hi, Joe, I am a Spanish speaker but I really enjoy your content. I wanted to present an argument against classical theism based on the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God and see what you think or how classical theists might respond. I apologize in advance if my English is not the best. Anyway, here it goes and I hope it makes sense:
Definitions:
- Incommunicable attributes (IA): They cannot have imitations _ad extra_ and are possessed only by God, such as infinity (in any form considered), essential eternity, immensity, absolute simplicity, absolute immutability.
- Communicable attributes (CA): They have imitations _ad extra_ (outward) and are also possessed by us, such as wisdom, will, active potency, freedom, life, knowledge.
Argument:
1. If we participate in God, then we must participate in all of God's attributes, because in Him, all His attributes are the same God (DDS), and we participate in God. For example, if we participate and have to some degree the Justice of God, we necessarily also participate and have to some degree the Mercy of God, since Justice and Mercy are the same in God (and Justive and Mercy are the same too), and so with the other attributes.
2. But if this is so, then we should also have, at least to some degree, incommunicable attributes, such as immutability or His creative power, for they are also in God.
3. But it is impossible for us to have, even to any degree, these attributes, for they belong only to God, being precisely incommunicable.
4. Therefore, it is impossible for us to participate in God in general, for as stated in (1), if we participate in God, then we must participate in _all_ of God's attributes.
5. But classical theism claims that we participate in God.
6. Therefore, classical theism is false.
I love arguments from theism and from atheism. I just love philosophy and I am a christian but I try to be as honest as possible because atheism/agnosticism has some strong cases. Now i want to analyze your argument mainly on point 1 (as the rest of your argument seems to be contingent on it).First, I need a definition of "participate in God", as classical theism, according to my understanding, stated that we are created in the image of God, but that only implies the nature of how the being operates and not necesssarily its atributes. For example, if a human created an AI in a humans image, the only implication is that it will behave like a human. You need to define the charactetistics then of both the human and the AI, and also consider that if the human doesnt have a charactetistic that the robot does have, it doesnt necesssarily mean that the robot wasnt created in Gods image. Therefore, we dont necessarily have to dictate that we have a piece of all of gods attributes
@@pjetercatsplat Thank you for your response. I also find these topics interesting. Regarding what you said, I would argue that the analogy between humans and AI isn't a very good one. I mean, there is no equivalence here because humans are not the hierarchical sustaining cause of AI (that is, AI does not participate in humans in that sense). But even if it were the case, humans are not absolutely simple, and this is important in my argument.
First of all, I understand "participate" (and I believe classical theists understand it this way as well) as 'taking part in,' which is exclusive to immaterial entities. Now, one of the implications of divine simplicity, aside from the fact that God has no parts of any kind, is that all of God's attributes are numerically and ontologically the same thing (that is, God Himself). And this is the reason why, in the first premise, I affirm that if we participate in God, we would have to participate _in all of God's attributes_ because there is no real distinction between them under this doctrine of classical theism. Thus, for example, if we participate in God's Justice, since Justice in God is identified with and identical to, for example, His creative power, then we should also participate in His creative power, which is false because the latter is an incommunicable attribute.
I hope I have made myself clearer now. Thanks again.
@@marianoaguilar9517 Thank you for your reply as well. Regarding the AI analogy, that is what I was saying, humans arent the hierarchial sustaining cause of AI, but we did create them. They participate "in us" via the fact that they act like how they were programmed to do so. In the same way, God created us, but programmed us basically to have a choice. Though I see the point you are making. I would disagree with you on the part where God's attributes are the same. If the attributes are the same in God, does this mean that they must be the same when expressed through something else? Furthermore, I think what youre talking about, if im not mistaken, is that God is simple and so the expression of each individual attribute, if expressed by God, must then be expressed by all of God. That is not necessarily so though. If God chose to express himself with attributes that are like him, but created to be seperated from him (as in he created a concept for humans that is an identical copy but programmed to be adapted to humans for the specific reason stated that we cannot have all of Gods attributes) would this still be an issue?
Thanks
@@pjetercatsplat Thank you for your reply. Returning to your analogy of AI, in us, as composite beings who do not cause essentially, there is no problem in "imparting" certain attributes of ourselves to AIs and not others. However, in God, as I have been arguing, things are different because divine simplicity does imply that all attributes in God are one and the same (God Himself, His very essence). Denying this would basically be denying classical theism or at least Thomism. In any case, one could adopt non-classical positions to solve this problem. But what I was trying to argue is that under this doctrine of classical theism, it does not seem possible for God to be "selective" about which "parts" or specific attributes to impart, because everything in God is ontologically the same, and the distinctions we make between His attributes are, according to classical theism, merely rational distinctions, a mere formality.
@@marianoaguilar9517 Thank you for your reply. I see what youre saying now. That makes more sense. However, If we use the example of dimensions in mathematics, dimensions get increasingly simpler as the laws of nature can be expressed more and more in their "natural" form. As the dimensions get higher and simpler, however, there becomes more distinct attributes to them. For example (3 dimensions include height width and length, 4 dimensions include 3 dimensions plus time, etc etc.) Yet each dimension becomes simpler. Does that make sense? And does that sort of answer your question about divine simplicity?
Majesty of Reason, your deep dive into this topic is both thought-provoking and accessible.
You sound very happy and jolly here. Glad to see it! ☺💖
8:18 Note: Modal logic is the study of valid inferences concerning possibility and necessity. Lets see if the video keeps it here.
Joseph you may have broken my brain. I think I've learned two things.
1: Demand a symmetry breaker.
2: Figure out how it demonstrates P*.
Stopping for now.
Average MoR video (They are awesome)
Awesome Video Joe! The MOA is one of the arguments that has really peaked my interest. This is great content.
Hey Joe. Just wanted to say hi from someone who was at Purdue around the same time as you. Am only just now getting into more formal philosophy so it’s interesting to be hearing it from someone who was in the same place I was!
Thanks for the time working on this.
Boiler up!!
5.1 The Presumption of Possibility
In analyzing this presumption, we need to distinguish between the idea of possibility and contingent possibility. A proposition is contingently possible if it is contingent; that is if it is true in at least one possible world and false in at least one possible world, or equivalently, if it is both possibly true and possible false, or if it is neither necessarily true nor necessarily false.
In formal modal logic, a proposition is possibly true if it is either contingently possibly true or necessarily true.
This can be confusing, as in common usage when we say something is possible, we typically are thinking of contingent possibility. In a discussion, I once said “It is possible 2+2=4.” Someone objected, saying, “No, it’s not merely possible 2+2=4, it’s necessarily true 2+2=4.” I explained that while in informal usage we might think of possibility as meaning contingent possibility, in formal modal logic a proposition is possible if it is either contingently possible or necessarily true. And assuming mathematical truths are necessary truths, while it is not contingently possible 2+2=4, it is necessarily true 2+2=4, and so in the language of formal modal logic we can say it is possible 2+2=4, as odd as that might sound.
With that in mind, when we say we should presume a proposition is possible absent a good reason for holding otherwise, are we thinking of necessity or contingent possibility? If we grant it is possible unicorns exist absent a good reason otherwise, is it because we think it reasonable to grant it is contingently possible unicorns exist absent a reason to do otherwise, or because we think it reasonable to grant unicorns exist and couldn’t possibly not exist absent a good reason for thinking otherwise?
I think the answer is obvious. If we grant it is possible unicorns exist absent a good reason otherwise, we are really granting it is contingently possible unicorns exist. Of course, as a logical consequence, we are also granting either it is contingently possible unicorns exist or it is necessarily true unicorns exist, but that is in no way because we think we should grant it is necessarily true unicorns exist absent a good reason otherwise. That would be silly.
With this in mind, we should replace this presumption with “The Presumption of Contingent Possibility” or “The Presumption of Contingency.” We should grant a proposition is contingent, absent a good reason not to.
And I think in this form, the principle is reasonable. Without it, how will we ever grant any proposition is contingent? There is no logical way to demonstrate any proposition is contingent. Perhaps every true statement is necessarily true, and every false statement is impossible. Perhaps the appearance of metaphysical contingency is illusory. Perhaps the universe is exactly as it had to be (the best of all possible worlds, as Leibnitz said). There’s no way to prove or demonstrate that’s not the case. Ultimately, the only way to argue a proposition is contingent is to argue it does not appear to be necessary (meaning necessarily true or necessarily false). So, I think we need this principle or at least something like it if we’re ever going to say, even provisionally, that some proposition is contingent.
The presumption of contingent possibility cannot be used to justify the main premise of the MOA. This principle tells us that we should assume it is contingently possible a perfect being exists unless we have a good reason not to. But we do have a good reason not to. It’s logically impossible it could be metaphysically contingently possible a perfect being exists. And I would argue it would be silly to say that since it isn’t contingently possible a perfect being exists, we should therefore assume it’s true and couldn’t be false a perfect being exists absent some good reason not to do so. The same goes for the main premise of the reverse MOA; we have a good reason to assume it is not contingently possible no perfect being exists, but that does not give us reason to assume it is necessarily true no perfect being exists absent a good reason not to.
But the presumption of contingent possibility does apply to the following argument:
Premise 1. It is contingently possible an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being exists.
Conclusion. No perfect being exists.
The above argument is valid. If a perfect being is defined to be a necessary omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being, then if a perfect being exists it must be necessarily true an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being exists; it cannot be merely contingently possible.
So, the presumption of contingent possibility tells us, absent a good reason not to do so, we should presume it is contingently possible an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being exists, and therefore no perfect being exists.
Can we restore the symmetry? Can we come up with an argument that leads from the contingent possibility of some sentence to the existence of a perfect being? I came up with the following:
Premise 1. The proposition “A perfect being exists and Joe Biden is the 45th President of the U.S.” is contingent.
Conclusion. A perfect being exists.
This satisfies my requirement. If no perfect being exists, the sentence “A perfect being exists and Joe Biden is the 45th President of the U.S.” is impossible, not contingent, so the argument is valid. The sentence “No perfect being exists or Joe Biden is the 45th President of the U.S.” would also work.
Nonetheless, I don’t think this is satisfying at restoring symmetry. My example seems highly artificial. Perhaps we should modify our presumption to something like, “we should assume a sentence which does not contain any modal operators (directly or indirectly) is contingently possible, unless we have a good reason not to.” This may require more thought.
Edit:
For me, the argument from the contingency of an omniscient omnipotent perfectly good being to the nonexistence of a perfect being is an interesting, but secondary point. The main point I wish to argue, is that the presumption of possibility is better understood as the presumption of contingent possibility, and if this is granted then it is evident why it cannot be used to support the main premise of the MOA.
Thanks, Joe!
I've been thinking a lot about possibilities, possible worlds included. Based on some of those thoughts, I've got a criticism against MOAs (which tries to undercut the possibility premise). While the specific criticism in mind doesn't feature in the video, it's nice to see other points of view about MOAs --- and in great detail, too! Cool vid
Thank you this is honestly a great video!
Terrence Howard's 1x1 = 2 is a great rebuttal to the motivational centrality symmetry breaker.
Joe deserves way more subscribers, guys. This stuff is awesome. Click the button and ring the bell!
I'm sure you are correct, but not because he is correct.
I never understood "ought implies can" - I understand why "can't" defeats "ought", so I could get behind "ought requires can", but I don't see that having the force of implication.
In formal logic, P implies Q means something slightly different than what it means in informal use. It means in principle it cannot be the case we could have both P and not Q. If the truth of P leads to the truth of Q, then it cannot be the case that P is true and Q is false; so P implies Q is true. If P requires Q to be true to be true itself, then it cannot be the case that P is true and Q is false, so again it is the case that P implies Q. In formal logic, P implies Q, If P then Q, P only if Q, if not Q then not P, P cannot be true unless Q is true, are all logically equivalent. Formal logic does not distinguish between them. Formal logic does not capture the nuances of cause and effect and time that we have in natural language. The MOA tells us if it's possible a MGB exists then a MGB exists. It also tells us that it cannot be possible a MGB exists unless a MGB exists. The advocate of the MOA may wish to emphasize the first of these two statements, while the skeptic may wish to emphasize the second. But formal logic does not distinguish between the two.
Would have enjoyed also seeing some symmetry breakers for the reverse possibility premise🤔
I just now posted a proposed symmetry breaker against the MOA. It starts by saying "5.1 The Presumption of Possibility
."
damn i hope you get into a free will argument like this at some point. imagine a 2 hour video on the manipulation argument that would be awesome!
In order to establish foundations:
3:47 SOMETHING IS METAPHYSICALLY POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE WHEN IT might...BE TRUE - IN OTHER WORLDS.
Who can explain what this means?
This is an amazing analysis. Thanks! What an interesting argument to analyze.
"Ouch"
-My Brian
6:52 The segment that discusses "Joe is a poached egg" is also abused. Please explain how it is possible for Joe to be a poached egg.
This is a minor technical point, but I thought you might find it amusing. Using the axiom system B instead of S5 in the MOA, we cannot conclude that if it is possible a MGB exists then a MGB exists. We can only conclude that if it is possible a MGB exists then a MEB exists.
To see this, consider a possible worlds model consisting of three worlds, A, C, and D, where A is the actual world. Suppose every world is accessible from itself (the accessibility relation is reflexive). Suppose A is accessible from C and C is accessible from A, and A is accessible from D and D is accessible from A (the accessibility relation is symmetric). However the accessibility relation is not transitive (D is accessible from A and A is accessible from C, but D is not accessible from C). This is a possible worlds model appropriate to the axiom system B, but not to S5.
Again, A is the actual world. Suppose a MEB exists in worlds A and C, but not in D (and it is the same MEB in every world it exists). Within C, it is true that the MEB exists necessarily, because it exists in every world accessible from C. So the proposition "A MGB exists" is true within C. Since C is accessible from A, within A it is true that "It is possible a MGB exists." But within A, it is possible the MEB does not exist, because it does not exist in D which is accessible from A. And so within A it is not true that a MGB exists; it is only true that a MEB exists. So working in the axiom system B, it could be true that it is possible a MGB exists but false that a MGB exists; however it would still be true a MEB exists.
Supposing that the Necessary Being 'exists' and that it is complex rather than simple, do you think something that intrinsically exists in a contingent way, e.g. a human consciousness (supposing that it could persist after death), could "merge" with the Necessary Being, and thereby go from being essentially contingent to necessary (necessary within and by virtue of being a part of Necessary Being)? In other words, a transfer of modes from existing in contingent form to a necessary form while retaining distinctions. I hope my question is clear. Thanks for another great video!
Why did this AWESOME question go UNANSWERED?
In the modal ontological we define our terms and choose to work in a modality such that it cannot be possible a MGB exists unless a MGB exists. Of course once we've made these decisions, it follows that if it is possible a MGB exists then a MGB exists. But then it equally follows that if we wish to show it is possible a MGB exists then we must show a MGB exists, making the argument useless for justifying a belief in God. That's really all there is to it.
I have always wondered to what extent the philosophical views of the authors affect the reviews they give in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. How are the authors even selected?
I think since the premises of the theist's argument are related, when we make one premise of it negative, we should change other premises into negative too or else it would be like
turning 2+2=4 into -2+2=0 and suggesting that "oh I have refuted 2+2=4". If our goal is balancing, then we should make both of the premises negative because the right balanced corolary is -2-2=-4 or
1) Possibly God does not exist
2) Necessarily if God does not exist, it is possible that God does not exist
3) Therefore it is possible that God does not exist.
Since possibility of God's non-existence in the first premise leads to a fallacy of begging the question in the conclusion, there is no such possibility! As you can see, we have changed both premises into negative.
Since most theists would reject your first premise, then if we want to counterbalance it by making the first premise of the argument negative, we should make the second premise of the theist's argument negative too; otherwise it seems like a double standard to change the first premise of theist's argument but hold the second premise the same.(because the positivity in the first and second premises are concomitantly interdependent).
If god is impossible (not possible) then his existence is logically impossible and logical impossiblites are for example stuff that's inconsistent but we know that god (the nesscry being) is consistent therefore god Is not impossible
Your comment is gibberish. Be MORE clear.
@@goldenarm2118
What is gibberish about it?
I am saying if you want to change one premise then you should change the other premise accordingly because the premises are related. We might be accused of ignoring the relation between premises, if we change our favorite premise and hold the other constant! To make it more clear consider this analogy that scientists give about metric expansion. They say the expanding space with stars in it are like a growing cake with raisins in it. They reduce both space and stars to cake and raisins. They never give an analogy of 'raisins in the sky' or 'stars in the cake'! Because when they change one factor of the main topic (namely expanding space into cake) they change the other too (namely stars into raisins). Similarly when you reduce one premise of ontological argument into "does not exist" we have to change the other premise too. Otherwise our own objection would problematic not the ontological argument.
Let me give you another analogy. consider a seesaw as the symbol of balancing. When you say "A goes up", the right balanced corollary is "B goes down" not 'B goes up' or 'A goes down'. Similarly when the ontological argument says "God necessarily exists" the right corolary is "evil does not exist" not 'evil exist' or 'God does not exist'.
5:18 The comparison between what is physically possible and metaphysically possible is absurd.
26:00 I might have a simple simmetry breaker to give the advantage to 1*. The empity world is a metaphysically possible world. It's conceivable, non contradictory, and if we see "world" as "set" even foundational to set theory that there's such a thing as an empity set or world. And if an empity world is possible, there's at least one possible world with no god, hence the possibility that god doesn't exist has at least one metaphisically possible instance.
The empty world is not possible.
@@TheSurpremeLogician how so? What IN an empty world would produce a contradiction? The very thought of something IN an empty world is incoherent, to have that produce a contradiction would be absurd. And if we have a world that is conceivable, consistent and foundational to various disciplines, how can you ever say it's not possible?
I disagree with the first objection to presumption of possibility symmetry breaker.
Non existence of God would in my opinion be equal to saying that Gods existence is impossible. Since the impossibility of something requires some reason for it to be impossible like the properties of that being being contradictory
I’m still listening to your video, but I have a few thoughts.
Recall that Plantinga defines a MEB to be a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Plantinga then defines a MGB to be a MEB that exists as a MEB in every possible world.
What must we do to establish the main premise of Plantinga’s MOA? What must we do to establish it is possible a MGB exists?
Working in the possible worlds model of S5, we must establish there is a possible world in which it is true a MGB exists. What must we do to establish it is true a MGB exists within some possible world? We must establish that within some possible world, there is an entity that satisfies the definition of a MGB. What must we do to establish a given entity in a possible world satisfies the definition of a MGB? We must establish that given entity is a MEB that exists in every possible world as a MEB, including the actual world, because that is how we have defined a MGB. If we can do that, then we can establish the main premise of the MOA. But of course if we can do that, we don’t need the MOA.
This is the problem with the MOA. It gives us the illusion it makes things easier. I no longer have to verify a MEB exists in the actual world, I need only verify there is a possible world in which a being having the properties of a MGB exists. But to verify a being in a possible world has the properties of a MGB, I must verify it exists in every possible world as a MEB, including the actual world, because that is the definition a MGB. The advocate of the MOA ends up saying, “I’m not saying a MEB exists in the actual world. I’m only saying that there is a possible world in which there exists a MEB that has the property of existing as a MEB in every possible world including the actual world.” It's actually more difficult to establish that an entity in a possible world has the properties of a MGB, than it is to establish a MEB exists in the actual world.
On the other hand, what would a skeptic who wishes to establish its possible no MGB exists need to do? That is a difficult question. However, there is something we can say for certain. For the skeptic to establish it is possible no MGB exists, it is sufficient to establish no MEB exists.
Now I’m not saying the skeptic can establish no MEB exists. That’s not my point. What I’m saying is the MOA places no additional burden on the skeptic. Originally, the skeptic is expected to establish no MEB exists. To the extent they are successful at doing so, they will be at least as successful at demonstrating it is impossible a MGB exists, because we have defined our terms and chosen to work in a modality such that the latter is a logical consequence of the former.
To the extent the skeptic was able to establish no MEB exists before the MOA, they are automatically at least as successful at establishing no MGB exists given the MOA, because we have defined our terms and chosen to work in a modality such that if no MEB exists then it is impossible a MGB exists.
To the extent the skeptic was able to establish we have no good reason to suppose a MEB exists before the MOA, they are automatically at least as successful at establishing we have no good reason to suppose it is possible a MGB exists given the MOA, because we have defined our terms and chosen to work in a modality such that it cannot logically be the case it is metaphysically possible a MGB exists unless a MEB exists.
Whether they are able to demonstrate no MEB exists or not, the MOA places no additional burden on the skeptic. The skeptic can safely ignore the MOA, and it will not change the plausibility of any of their results. The MOA is empty of persuasive force.
The MOA proves that if no MEB exists, then it is impossible a MGB exists. People frequently misinterpret this to conclude the MOA places a burden on the skeptic to prove it is impossible a MGB exists. But this is because we usually naturally interpret possibility and impossibility as epistemic possibility and impossibility (as modeled in the axiom system S4). In this modality, something is impossible if it can be proven or demonstrated or known to be impossible. But the MOA assumes we are working in the modality of S5, where saying something is impossible does not necessarily mean it is knowably or provably or demonstrably impossible.
In the MOA, if no MEB exists, the reason it will be impossible a MGB exists is because no being within any possible world will satisfy the definition of a MGB, because that definition requires it to exist as a MEB in every possible world, including the actual world. There is nothing in the MOA to suggest that if no MEB exists, that someone will be able to know or demonstrate or prove no MEB exists. There is nothing in the MOA to suggest that if no MEB exists, then someone will be able to prove or know or demonstrate no MGB exists. There is nothing in the MOA to suggest that if no MEB exists then there will fail to be symmetry breakers somehow favoring the possibility of some MGB existing over the possibility of no MGB existing. If no MEB exists then it will be impossible a MGB exists purely because (a) No MEB exists, (b) We’ve defined a MGB to be a necessarily existing MEB that is necessarily a MEB, and (c) we are working in S5; absolutely no other reason is needed. This is what we mean when we say the MOA assumes we are working with metaphysical possibility and impossibility.
This is why the MOA, whether it is sound or not, is completely empty of any persuasive power.
Can I ask a question? If we consider existence itself as the beginning, even within an infinite chain of causation and dependency, everything necessitates existence due to the presence of existence itself. Reality depends fundamentally on the existence of existence in some form, making reality contingent. Therefore, existence itself, being the only necessary being, acts as the ultimate cause of everything and must exist in every conceivable world. It is logically impossible for non-existence to cause its own existence. This can be used to argue that existence cannot be an abstract object because it can cause, suggesting instead that existence is a non-physical mind. Furthermore, existence is posited as all-powerful and all-good in all possible worlds, but I'm not going to delve deeper into this. What is your response to this?
Are we sure it is a symmetrical relation to need symmetrical breaking?
Symmetrical relations are two-way and the two sides have the same value. But does existence have the same weight as non-existence?
To me this assymetrical mindmap:
non-existence
H3O is called hydronium. Thanks for the upload! ❤
I've been thinking that this argument can be used on existance or reality itself.
We tend to view reality as separeted in discrete objects, phenomena and regions. But that separation is a feature of our interpretation, reality can be equaly viewd as a single continuous substance, making it an unified whole. The scientific model of matter describes it as such; there is no iron or oxygen, there's only different arrangements of elemental particles, iron is the name we give to when a bigger bunch of quarks and electrons, oxygen is a smaller bunch. if we assume an experience centered view, then we still view reality as a continuum of first person experiences.
With reality being then a unified whole, if there's an attribute of a part of it, it then is also an attribute of the whole. For example, if my arm can grab a ball, then it's obviously true that I can grab a ball. If my liver produces enzymes, then I have those enzymes. So then, if I know that the sky is blue, "reality" knows that the sky is blue. "Reality" knows everything there is to know then. The same can be said to potency, if you have the potency to do X, then "reality" has the potency to do X. Reality is omnipotent.
Moral perfection seems to be merely a construct of our minds. But even in this case, the knowledge we have of such construct, and the potency that we have to achieve some result on that, is also transferable to the whole of reality.
In this view the argument gains a whole new meaning. Instead of a proof of some external being. It becomes an almost tautological description of rality, if not for that fact that it proves reality itself to be a necessary entity, and so in no need of creation. It becomes a proof of the autonomous nature of reality and lack of necessity of external being creating it.
It make quite a lot of sense then. If it is possible for reality to exist, than it must, because it makes absolutely no sense to talk of a possible world in which Reality doesn't exist. A possible world assumes existance, so a possible world of non existance is a contradiction.
We can conclude that it is impossible for reality to not exist. Since it makes no sense to say that non existance may exist, it is impossible for there to be a state of non existance, and so, the only possible alternative is for existance.
I still don't understand the difference (according to this video) between metaphysical possibility and metaphysically necessity. Can someone please explain the similarities and differences?
Well, the Goldbach conjecture does indeed seem to be true. It has been shown to hold for all integers less than 4*10^18, mathematicians have proved a lot of partial results, and there are also strong heuristic justifications for it. Euler himself regarded it «as a completely certain theorem».
It is true that the conjecture has not been proven (at least not yet), but it seems overwhelmingly more probable that the conjecture is true than that the conjecture is false.
There’s a funny asymmetry with respect to the symmetry breakers concerning incoherency arguments; if the defender of incoherency arguments is successful they’ve defeated the MOA (and theism generally), however, if the defender of the MOA defeats incoherency arguments they still have the burden of defending the (metaphysical) possibility premise (assuming metaphysical modality is legit to begin with).
You could’ve covered incoherency arguments in this if you wanted to make it more comprehensive but it’s great work as it stands, & maybe you’ll dedicate a 10 hour video to incoherency arguments anyway 😎
Hi, do you remember talking to me? Small world.
In defense of the deontic symmetry breaker:
We can avoid the objection from God-incompatible goods by modifying the "good implies can" principle to "pro toto good implies can" and if anything good prevents God from existing, it may not be pro toto good because it prevents this very great good of God existing
Excellent suggestion! :)
One potential countermove is to try to focus on God-incompatible seemingly *pro toto* goods. For instance, consider impersonal conceptions of utlimate realities that are directed toward producing things of value in the same way God is. Examples might include certain axiarchic veiws (where the relevant impersonal ultimate reality is, e.g., the cosmos a la Philip Goff) impersonal conceptions of the Form of the Good, etc.
@@MajestyofReason
Thx for the reply :3
That seems to be a promising counter. I will think more about it!
@@MajestyofReason
Is that at all related to the the way Quentin Smith referred to the "world-whole" (the sum total of reality/the universe) as the greatest good, or that which should demand the most awe and such from us?
Necessary state of a perfect being lack limits , contingent state (His volitional actions )of perfect being have limits which controls the creation that have limit
Hence Perfect being has full control/providence over creation
Limit (in contingent state)is explained by necessary state of God (non-contrastive ,non entailing ,without violating PSR)
I would argue that it does violate PSR (or rather, I would go even more stringent with the PSR) as it seems like God could have created some other form of creation instead. So what's the sufficient reason for this actual creation rather than another?
@@georgeel-azar4684 sure , The strongest version of PSR and Sufficient Reason(used by Leibniz ,Ibn Sina etc..) demand a entailing , contrastive explanation
But the version the contemporary proponents such as Pruss,Josh , Samuel Clark,Timothy O Connor ,Richard gale ,Christopher Tomaszewski etc.. use doesn’t demand or require that
I meant their version of PSR is not violated
Joe is THE GREATEST PHILOSOPHER right now 👏👏👏👏
Josh R joked one time that he would be the next Kripke, I think it's already the case lol
If "the next Kripke" was defeated by a self-taught philosopher (IP) I think he's in shaky waters and so is naturalism
@@bonbon__candy__1
Thank you for providing me with my daily LAUGH, Slave! 😂
Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱
So the babes in the gym who are into symmetry breakers for modal ontological arguments are... possible? Not sure.
I don't mean this to be offensive to the field in any way, but what counts as "research" in philosophy? Is it not just reading and thinking about things?
I'm not a philosopher but a mathematician. I'd posit research in philosophy is exactly like any other field of human endeavour. That is, presenting new information in a way that furthers our previous understanding. As far as I understand, that's all any scientist, scholar, heck HUMAN is trying to do.
As an edit, I think "reading and thinking about things" sounds reductive, but I understand your sentiment. Just note that this is practically what research is (in any scholarly field), but doesn't capture what research does
I would like to see your opinion about Kevin Berger's agnostic case against atheism.
Is not having a property considered a property?
Let’s get the algorithm juiced!
You say "By the characteristic axiom of S5, ⋄□p-->□p." I don't think this is quite right. The 5 Axiom which corresponds to a Euclidean accessibility relationship says ⋄p implies □⋄p. You need to do a bit of work to show ⋄□p-->□p is a consequence of S5, so I don't think it is rightfully labeled as a "characteristic axiom". In fact, it really isn't even a standard axiom, it is usually a theorem, meaning it is deducible from the empty set here.
Thanks for the comment! I tend to view this as a semantic dispute. Given that accessibility is an equivalence relation, the formulation I gave is logically equivalent to the formulation you gave. If we want to privilege one as ‘the characteristic axiom’, that’s alright; but I don’t think there’s any principled reason to privilege one over the other (other than, perhaps, one of them commonly being referred to as ‘the characteristic axiom’, although I’ve seen both introduced together as equivalent formulations of the S5 axiom). The reason I chose the one I did is pedagogical: it’s much easier for a video like this to introduce it as an axiom rather than introduce something else and then derive the other in a way that would easily lose the audience.
@@MajestyofReason Fair enough. By "characteristic axiom" I thought you were referring to 5. There are tons of ways of formulating it. But I like the way you guys put it in the SEP better "By S5, ◊□p→□p." The only reason I guess to choose 1 axiom over the others is that they correspond to certain accessibility relationships that have philosophical importance. Like Hugh Chandler critiques transitivity.
You describe epistemic possibility as the modality where something is possible if it is possible “for all that we know.” But that is only one form of epistemic possibility.
In the axiom system S4, we may start with a set of propositions that are taken apriori to be necessarily true, together with any logical tautologies. Then anything that can be logically proven from these are also necessarily true. Anything that can be proven to be impossible is impossible. Finally, anything that is not impossible is possible.
This is an epistemic modality, because it is a modality of, not what is known, but what is in principle knowable. To say something is possibly true in this modality is not to say that it is true “for all that we know,” but rather we cannot in principle prove it is false.
The axiom system S4 has actually been used in mathematics, to capture the idea of provability. Mathematicians have used S4 as a tool for proving the continuum hypothesis cannot be proven to be true or to be false using the other axioms of set theory (see “Set Theory and the Continuum Problem” by Smullyan and Fitting).
If we are mathematical Platonists (as I am), we could say that a statement in mathematics is metaphysically necessarily true in the sense of S5 if it is true (because all statements in mathematics are metaphysically non-contingent) and epistemically necessarily true in the sense of S4 if it in principle can be proven to be true (regardless of whether or not anyone has in fact proven it).
Godel’s incompleteness theorem suggests there are statements in mathematics that are true but which cannot in principle be proven to be true (perhaps Goldbach's conjecture is an example of such a statement, but we do not know that). Such statements would be metaphysically necessarily true, but not epistemically necessarily true.
The biggest challenge I had in studying the MOA was making sense of the difference between the epistemic modality modeled by S4 and the metaphysical modality modeled by S5. Seeing how it worked in mathematics was a big help.
Of course the argument works.
P1. That something is impossible is a stronger claim than that something is possible.
P2. All stronger claims demand stronger evidence than weaker claims.
C. Therefore the claim that something is impossible demands stronger evidence than that something is possible.
To run the reverse modal ontological argument, one does not need to claim God is impossible. One only needs to claim that God's non-existence is *possible*
You might as well say that the reverse argument works because the theist is committed to the claim that God's non-existence is *impossible* whereas the non-theist need only claim that God's non-existence is *possible*
@@MajestyofReasonGod’s non-existence being possible is equivalent to his impossibility.
So to say it is possible that God doesn’t exist is to say that God is impossible.
@@TheSurpremeLogician But equally, God's existence being possible is equivalent to his necessity.
So to say it is possible that God exists is to say that God is necessary. And that is *not* a weaker claim than that God is impossible. (In fact, claiming that God is necessary is equivalent to claiming that God's non-existence is impossible -- i.e., an impossibility claim.)
@@MajestyofReason God’s existence being possible is in fact equivalent to his necessity, but possible necessity isn’t a stronger claim than impossibility.
@@TheSurpremeLogician Sure, it's not a *stronger* claim; I never said it was. The point is that the claims are *equally strong* , and so there's no advantage to the modal ontological argument here. In that case, the argument doesn't work -- at least, not for the reason you specify (that it makes a weaker claim).
6:00 The video asserts that metaphysical reality is different than logical possibility. He asserts that "water is H2O and couldn't be H3O." He says it is logically possible that water could be H3O. i disagree and think this is absurd.
"Access to 15,000 word scrip" ~ a selling point. 😝
Hi, I love your video. Do you know any other channel that creates videos like yours? Ty :3
Kane B
Joshua Rasmussen
Liz Jackson
Parkers Pensees
@@ILoveLuhaidan ty
How many symmetry breakers are there all together?
@@silverharloe 1800?? The MOA is much newer than that
@@silverharloe I don’t think modal logic was a thing in the 1800s…
i only watched to like 10mins but is there a difference between possiblly true and possibly false arent those the same
‘1+1=2’ is necessarily true and, therefore, possibly true. (It’s not impossible! So it’s possible.) But ‘1+1=2’ is not possibly false. So possibly true =/= possibly false
For 1:15:55 you defined positive properties. Is this the formalized notion of how Anderson defined positive properties in his "Amendations of the Godel Argument" paper? If not, what is the way you define positive* and positive' in Latex?
That definition is from Bernstein 2014 or 2018 (cited in the PhilPapers link in the description) 🙂
@@MajestyofReason So, I believe it is the 2014 paper "Is God's Existence Possible?".
The definition given is: "A property P is a perfection just in case P in no way detracts from the greatness of any being in which it inheres and P, its complement, does." You seem to argue, however, this is ambiguous (1:15:49). Rightly said. So you define positive* and positive'. These I cannot find in the paper, so I decided to try to translate it myself. I would like to ask if this is a reasonable formalization of your definitions, or did you have something else in mind (apologies if it is technical):
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
Define S:= $\{\psi: (\models \lnot\phi) \implies \Box\forall x(\phi(x)
ightarrow \psi(x))\}$ .\\
"$\models \lnot\phi$" means that $\lnot\phi$ is true.
ewline
P* := $Positive^*(\phi) \iff (\forall x) (\forall \psi \in S)[\lnot \psi (x) \implies (\phi(x)
ightarrow \phi$ does not detract from the greatness of x)].
ewline
P' := $Positive'(\phi) \iff (\forall x) [\phi(x)
ightarrow \phi$ does not detract from the greatness of x].
^Putting this in the website domain "tlhiv" with suffix "org", extension "/ltxpreview/" will make the TeX legible. The website is by Troy Henderson. Otherwise, you can plug it into your preferred tex editor. I am unsure if you can add links in comments.
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As a side note: good trump impression (I didnt catch that on viewing). Tremendous, one of the best, I tell you- truly great this guy: Joe Schmid! Gotta love him.
@@MajestyofReason To clarify, I believe it is important to formalize these notions. Being that Godel's original argument was formalized, it would be in his spirit to advance the merits or objections to his argument with formalized reasoning. One cannot, however, tell others how they ought to formalize their statements.
English is ambiguous and you may have several formalizations of a given sentence, and some may skew from the intent of the author. A problem one may foresee with this is that the objections in the video- similar to Oppys- may not work (For a rigorous disproof of some of Oppy's claim see et al. Bentzmuller and Paleo's work on proof checking). I asked if it was Anderson, as the definition given here (in the video) sounds similar to the Anderson one which has been formalized.
And, as it turns out, the definition implies the axioms of Anderson's framework, which invariably prove God possibly exists.
I will now restate my formalization that is not latex friendly but more legible on a UA-cam comment:
Define S:= {psi: |= not phi => Box\forall x(phi(x) -> psi(x)}
"|= not phi" means that "not phi" is true.
P* := Positive*(phi) iff (\forall x) (\forall psi in S)[not psi (x) => (phi(x) -> "phi does not detract from the greatness of x")]
P' := Positive'(phi) iff (\forall x) [phi(x) -> "phi does not detract from the greatness of x"].
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Box means the modal operator "Necessarily".
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I leave my replies here.
@@dddd-te5dg I don’t quite understand the symbolism you’re using, unfortunately! Apologies. I don’t quite know what ‘phi’ and ‘psi’ stand for (propositional constants? Predicate symbols? If the latter, how could ‘not phi’ be true? A negated predicate symbol doesn't seem truth-apt. If the former, how could propositional constants take arguments?); the use of the semantic entailment sign is confusing to me; I don’t know what ’S’ is supposed to be; and there are other elements that are confusing to me. (I’m also not very familiar with LaTeX, which probably isn’t helping me!)
It’s worth noting that we can run my criticism without trying to formalize positivity* and positivity’. In fact, we needn't even mention these notions. For we can run my criticism as follows. A positive property is originally defined as a property which doesn’t detract from greatness. If we let ‘D’ be the predicate ‘detracts from greatness’ and ‘P’ be the predicate ‘is a positive property’, we get the following definition of positive property:
Def(positive property): ∀x (Px ~Dx)
My dilemma is then the following: when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness - and consequently when assessing whether a property is positive, given Def(positive property) - we either take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion, or we don’t.
If we take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness, then the positivity premise (according to which [being God], or [being perfect], or [being God-like], or [being omnipotent], or etc. is positive) is both dialectically inappropriate and unmotivated (to me, at least). In that case, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists.
If we *don’t* take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness, then the non-entailment premise (according to which positive properties don’t entail negative properties) is both dialectically inappropriate and unmotivated (to me, at least). In that case, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists.
Either way, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists.
This is perhaps a simpler and better way to explain my criticism than going through all the hoopla about positivity* and positivity’. It also avoids having to formalize those notions (which I think can be done, it would just take me a while to sit down and do it carefully).
@@MajestyofReason Ah yes, that is understandable. I was worried for such a possibility and I will clarify now. My apologies.
So phi and psi are symbols to represent an arbitrary property. phi(x) might be interpreted as "x is red" or "x is tall". x is a variable symbol for any person, rock, entity, etc.
'S" is its own term. So the expression "S:=" means you are assigning a meaning to the symbol S, where the meaning is the right of ":=". Essentially here I am trying to define a set of all psi which is "metaphysically entailed by phi by explosion". S is the set of all properties where if "phi" is false, then psi is metaphysically entiled by phi. I believe I interpreted your idea of "metaphysical entailment" correctly. You gave two definitions which seemed to be equivalent to my idea of "Box forall x (phi(x) then psi(x))".
As to the argument: the definition of positivity being in relation to defectiveness seems akin to Anderson's definition of positivity in his paper "Emendations of the Godel Ontological Argument". They are premises (B1) and (B2).
As for the "metaphysical entails by explosion" dilemma. I would actually be inclined to accepted entailment by explosion. So, I wanted to make sure I formalized your argument correctly so I am careful... but it sounds like this "entailment by explosion" is simply a "vacuous truth". In mathematics, this idea that "if p then q" is always true if the ancedent p is false, is abused and used all the time.
It might actually follow from the Gentzen rules and axioms for logic, in addition to the Hilbert axioms- which is the groundwork for all classical logic. I know truth tables show this is true. I believe the truth tables are equivalent to the axioms for logic, though.
As for your proposed definition, I will try playing around with that and see what I get. I would suggest learning LaTeX. I learn from experience and practice. "Overleaf" and "TexStudio" are my go to IDEs (platforms) for using it.
I would ask you to read page 312 of the article "Godel's Ontological proofs and its variants" by Peter Hajek. I would use the website "libgen" to get the book the article is contained in. The book is named "Kurt Godel and the Foundations of Mathematics"
I feel as though this is incorrect, as he gives a 3 line proof that God possibly exists in that article. The only issue whether or not these axioms are consistent with what "positive actually means". This is amiable as an objection, because the literature I've read has yet to define positive (or test the definition), aside from maybe Anderson's article I already referenced.
I wished to see a formalization of your definition of positive to see if it stands to work against or with the argument.
I will now consider this" ∀x (Px ~Dx)"
The shortest and most effective way to respond to MOA is through reverse MOA.
It instantly mutes the theist!
What does this mean? I'm a theist. Can you expound on your comment. I'm listening to this video slowly so as to consume its points; which means i haven't listened to the whole video.
@@goldenarm2118 The point is, if MOA is any good, so is reverse MOA. So we have two equally good arguments that lead to conclusions that negate each other.
Or to put it a bit differently from the video, you can have a modal ontological argument for naturalism.
Possibly, naturalism is true.
Necessarily, if naturalism is true, then it is necessary that naturalism is true.
Hence, it is necessary that naturalism is true.
It mutes the theist in the sense that the naturalist/atheist has an equally good argument in his arsenal, so MOA doesn't give any advantage to the theist.
@@anteodedi8937 Thank you. You have expounded on your original comment and I think I understand your point of view. I will watch the rest of the video and message. Thank you so much for responding to my question.
@@anteodedi8937 The issue I find with this version is that making the case for a naturalistic/godless universe being necessary requires more supporting argumentation, and is less intuitive, than making the case for a perfect being being necessary. I'd go with Schmid's rMOA as such.
@@georgeel-azar4684 And why would that be less intuitive?
I would say a perfect being, i.e., a being that possesses qualities like power, knowledge, and goodness to the greatest degree of conceivability has to be maximally complex and contingent. We see from experience that the closer a being is to perfection, the more complex and contingent it is. That's how evolution of anything works. Things get better with time and more steps.
Putting a perfect being right at the start and ascribing necessity to it gets existence backwards.
I can never get past the definition of the greatest possible being. Why wouldn't the greatest being have all possible attributes rather than just some? Take omnipotence, for example. Just like it's supposedly greater to actually exist than to not exist, it seems to me it's greater to actually wield all possible powers than to either not possess them or for some powers to be only latent. Then we get something like this:
God is the greatest possible being.
The greatest possible being wields all possible powers.
The powers to do good and evil exist.
God wields the powers of good and evil.
The same would go for every other conceivable attribute. My intuition tells me this sort of all-encompassing God would be vastly more powerful, perfect, and necessary than the measly tri-Omni God. Certainly, this God is better "suited to the present appearances of nature." I'm guessing there's a way to formulate a modal argument along this line.
In line with what the Old Testament says about God, funnily enough. Anyway, all these modal arguments for God appear to have this problem that while they may work for a generic omniGod, they don't convincingly work for the standard Christian triune God.
lol 1:19:50 the property of not being a patreon of majesty of reason 😂😂
Thank you for this excellent lecture, to the extent I have been able to watch, it will take some time! Already at the start I have a question. You say that if something is logically impossible, it is *also metaphysically impossible. I'm fine with there being a distinction between the two concepts, but the implication of metaphysical impossibility seems invalid to me.
Why is that true? Why can't we conceive of the possibility that there are different rules of logic that provide the foundation for all of our physical laws? Are not the laws of logic, essentially just a more foundational form of physical law? So why can't those vary?
This is an excellent question. In my experience, philosophers mostly take it for granted that which logic is true doesn't vary from world to world. You're correct to press for some justification for this assumption. I'll confess that the assumption just seems pretty obvious to me. For instance, this just seems like it couldn't possibly be an invalid form of reasoning:
1. If p, then q
2. p
3. Therefore, q
It seems implausible in the extreme that there's some (metaphysically) possible world in which this argument form is invalid. And most rules of inference are just as obvious as this one and seemingly just as necessary as this one.
Another approach would be to argue that logical truths are conceptual truths (i.e., they're true in virtue of their constituent concepts, such as the concepts expressed by 'if...then', 'and', 'or', etc.). And it is uncontroversial that conceptual truths (e.g., all triangles have three sides) are metaphysically necessary.
@@MajestyofReason Greetings Joe you little Einstein you. I posted a comment under this video 7 hours ago and you didn't respond. Yet the OP comment in this thread was posted only 3 hours ago and you responded to their comment within an hour. What's with this selective favoritism of your responses? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you simply didn't see my comment, so maybe it's not favoritism... Or is it? Say it ain't so, Joey!
One would think a boy as bright as you likes to treat all his viewers with equal consideration... Am I right? ☺
Joe Schmid, what happened to YOUR symmetry breaker you presented on capturing Christianity with Alex o Connor?
Edit: also when’s the next q and a
It's a long and annoying story lol. In short: my paper got two very positive referee reports from AJP and a minor revision decision. I completed my minor revisions, and -- bizarrely -- the editors sent the paper out to a *third* referee who raised (unsuccessful) objections to my paper, and the editors rejected the paper on the basis of the third referee's comments. What followed *this* was a series of rejections from journals, each based on (unsuccessful) objections from a referee. After a series of rejections like this spanning a year or two (an individual submission to a journal can take even up to a year to get a decision), I lost interest in publishing the paper.
As for the next Q&A, it's probably 50k subs, but I don't know!
@@MajestyofReason can you still do a video on the symmetry breaker or post it on your blog?
@@MajestyofReason I’m interested in it
@@InfinityExt if you want a version of the paper, you can email me and i'll send it to you
1:23:37 thought I was on 2x speed
Joe, you're a smart guy. Smarter than all the world's geniuses combined. Tell us who we should vote for!
My name is Joe, therefore, you should vote for Trump.
Vote for Joe..... Biden
(I'm joking vote for who u want. :
Note to self : doesn't attack S5 modal logic.
38:27
I have an intuition that the "great making features" theists assigned to God are kinda of arbitrary or subjective. Take Alselm's argument, for instance. A being than which no grater can be conceived will depend on our conceptions of what is greater.
This is usually bypassed by adding the qualifier of “all things held equal.” Given a general circumstance not conceived of to be of detriment to strength, is it generally better to be strong or not. Of course the former. There is also the intuition, but this criticism has been dealt with
@aydentrevaskis8390 idk man. Suppose a great making feature causes God to be logically impossible, in this case, this great making feature is actually a bad making feature. For instance, a god who is able to make triangles with 4 sides is supposedly more powerful than a god who can't do it. But the former is logically impossible, so that feature makes this kind of god impossible, and an impossible god is less great than a possible god.
The example of feature i gave is obvious, but some apparently consistent feature might be logically impossible, and the contradiction just wasn't made clear yet.
I have what I think is a rebuttal to such reasoning, using a similar concept. Suppose one conceives of a greatest state of being - which I would say would be either invincibility or immortality. If we can conceive of such a state, and it is greater for it to exist in reality than in our own heads exclusively, then it must exist! And yet, we don't have any conclusive evidence, let alone proof, of either concept being real or even feasible.
Feeding the algorithm with a #COYG
I’ll be seeing them play Liverpool in Philadelphia! 🔴⚪️🔴⚪️🔴⚪️
W video
Lol 1:11:24 😂😂
This video was worth it for the Trump impression.
Noice 🤙
Amazing
I for one see no difference between a (logically) possible thing and a "really" existing thing, hence (logical) possibility = existence. The problem with proving God's existence by reason then reduces to coming up with such a definition of God that is logically consistent with everything else in reality, that is, with all other logically possible things. Once you do that, you have proved that God exists, as defined.
Following your line of reasoning, a godless universe is logically possible, therefore a godless universe exists?
@@georgeel-azar4684 Yes, if it is indeed logically possible, that is, logically consistent with all other logically possible things.
El Algo
😍
Omni?
The very concept violates the law of noncontradiction. Something can't be Omni=all, "All good" and "all evil" at the same time. And, if you add a descriptor you have just limited the concept of Omni.
is the concept ever used that way though ? i've never encountered the omni concept without a descriptor and, yes, it seems foolish to even think that it's logical. i don't believe theists have a problem with limiting it, subsets of omni still carry the same "punch" while also being somewhat conceivable
@@ahuman4797 to quote one of favourite movie series, Spock says "to hunt a species to extinction is illogical" The main female protagonist ( sorry, can't remember her name) says "Whoever said humans are logical?" 🤔🙄😠
That's the way I feel about an allegedly "perfectly loving" and also "perfectly just" God, who, as a function of It's latter attribute, must dispense everlasting punishment.
Omni-positive quality not negative quality. Negative qualities are lacks of positive ones and nothing to be omni.
@@MiladTabasy get a goddam dictionary, dufus! omni-
[ˈämnē]
combiningform
all; of all things:
"omniscient" · "omnifarious"
in all ways or places:
"omnicompetent" · "omnipresent"
This has to be the dumbest line of reasoning I have ever encountered. Just keep on inventing logic systems until you find the one that suits your needs, and then pretend you can prove something with it.
"Something is possibly necessary, therefor it is necessary" ??? Come on people, are you really on that level? If you accept that, then all bets are off and you can prove anything you want.
Well it apparently seem so but it is only true about God because necessity is part of God's definition.
I should like to challenge you to analyze an argument in favor of God's existence. Do you accept it?
1. JESUS IS LORD
2. CHRIST IS KING
3. Therefore Joe is a poached egg
irrefutable
😂@@MajestyofReason
@@MajestyofReason You can only say Jesus is Lord by the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately your comment rings of sarcasm. But we are praying for you, brother.
@@goldenarm2118 imagine praying for a poached egg
@@bigol7169 Are you calling Majesty of Reason a poached egg?
7:25 he did say "Joe is a poached egg" is logically possible. I disagree, however.
Guh, I can’t philosophize. Press 1 for Argument from Miracles.
Perhaps the worst video ever made.
@@RayG817 thank you, very cool!
@@MajestyofReason You talk way too fast. Sorry.
@@RayG817 you can put it on 0.75x speed if you want
@@MajestyofReason The problem with defining god as "the being with the best possible combination of knowledge, power, and goodness" is that this vague combination can be neither defined nor proven to exist. When debated, the definition of god always comes down to the debater's OPINION of what these characteristics are, which is based solely on intuition. Why on earth do you think you could possibly come up with a precise definition of the nature of god, which even the bible says is unknowable? What I find interesting is that this obvious weakness is listed 7th, as if it's unimportant.