K

Earnest Sparks:

Naturally. It's why I picked this example.

It don't see why the mass increasing indefinitely is any less meaningful than the spatial coordinates increasing indefinitely. Given the constant (and non-zero) density, we could as easily integrate the reciprocal of *RHO* over some mass measure, M, to determine the volume. The volume would also diverge as M increased indefinitely.

I think I like the formulation you have suggested here best.

Thank you for your help in refining the example.

mattbballman

tom,

What your objection fails to consider is the philosophical distinction between "logically impossible" and "factually impossible." Although it is factually impossible that a non-contingent being exist that creates the sky green instead of blue, it is not logically impossible that such a being exist (because the facts about our world would be different -- e.g., a green sky -- from what they are now). It is factually impossible that I can jump 75 feet into the air, but it is not logically possible. Your best bet is to contest the first premise of the "pseudosyllogism" in that it may be a false dilemma (the traditional objection to the Ontological argument). Maybe God is logically possible but not logically necessary -- particulary if some version of Open Theism were true.

matt

Ernest Sparks

fishbulb,

Unfortunately it is not a matter of what one wants, but rather of what one can get

I can't accept that. It is very MUCH a matter of 'what one wants'. One must also be willing to be found wrong. As for 'what one can get', I don't presume to forecast the final outcome in the beginning, and it might take a very long time to find out what will (in the end) be 'got'.

..., they remain just hypotheses and not established fact

And that is just the way it should be. These are CONJECTURES, and their purpose is to survive REFUTATION. I do not subscribe to the notion that science begins with hypotheses that evolve (if lucky) into facts.

example: no one has yet shown me an empirical snapshot of a super-symmetric-string or M-brane. But lots of theorists (especially mathematically-oriented ones) love these things and the field is so rich, that they hold out great hopes for their futures. They have begun interpreting things, like centers of black-holes and the big-bang with them, even active-galactic-nuclear objects. But I have never seen a piece of evidence for their actual existence. I say also, more power to 'em!
Theories are given up when hardly anybody is interested in them anymore and the pioneer generation is gone. SSS and M theory is about 30 years old and might last until, say, 2050, maybe longer. On the other hand, it may all just blow away.

Empirical testing comes after conceptualization of theories. The value of theories is to point directions for empirical study. To the extent that theories are interesting in proportion to their output, potentially observable interesting stuff, then theorists are clued by existing problems of interpretation. But the roof is off as far as what kind of foundations are appropriate for a theoretic science.

In case you'd like to catch a look of what I have going on-and-on about, here:

link to 'So what is string theory, then'?

link to 'Is there a more fundamental theory?

Site owner Pat Schwarz provides a whole introductory course to this stuff:

link to 'The official string theory web site'

Regards,ern

-----

K,

The story has some legs, I think, but enough is enough for a awhile.

Regards,ern

fishbulb

How are these not based on empirical observations? Scientists posit the existence of entities that cannot be verified all the time, but they use the observed behaviour of other phenomena to justify these hypotheses. Indeed, the purpose of proposing these hypothetical entities is to explain phenomena which we can observe but whose behaviour we cannot explain. I don't see anything fundamentally un-empirical or unscientific about this.

There is also a big difference between hypothesis and evidence. Investigating a hypothesis that could explain a phenomenon is not the same thing as providing evidence that one's hypothetical entity actually exists. No good scientist would make up an entity to explain a phenomenon and then claim that she had proven the existence of the entity. The hypothesis is an important first step, but it is not evidence. This is a fundamental difference between science and non-empirical methods of investigation: ideas are just ideas until they have been shown to be true.

And none of this is anything like a claim that one can prove the existence of a thing (in this case, God) through a purely ontological argument whose premises are not based on observation and whose conclusion cannot be empirically verified, either directly or indirectly.

Ernest Sparks

...based..., ...based..., ...based...

'based' is a slippery word. Do theorists try to take clues from prior accomplishments? Yes they do. But they are not bound to 'base' their ideas upon them. The actual direction is rather to END with promising predictions and hopeful postdictions. {empirical justification = the LAST thing, not the first}

'...ideas are just ideas....'

ideas are IDEAS. That is my mindscape. They are rich, potent, mindfreeing. See next.

...cannot be empirically verified..., ideas are just ideas, ...

Too many rigidly forecasting negatives here. It tends to put you and the apologists in similar mindset. They like to talk a lot about 'cannot, just, only' too. Wait and see what happens.

'...shown to be true...'

It may take a very long time.

Regards,
Ern

fishbulb

Come on, Ernie. McHugh is claiming to be able to prove the existence of God based on a purely logical argument. None of his premises are derived from any sort of empirical observation. Do you really not see any difference between such an argument and what theoretical physicists are doing?

Also, do you really equivocate between a hypothesis and an alleged proof? I don't think you have written anything that is at all convincing vis a vis establishing that purely ontological arguments can prove anything about the real world. While it is true that any random hypothesis might, in fact, be true--regardless of its origin--and that this hypothesis could, potentially, be tested and shown to be true, that is not at all the same thing as saying that an argument with no empirical premises can prove anything about the real world.

Ernest Sparks

fishbulb,

A pure logical argument is what an ontodialectian wants. Messy side squabbles about empirical crunch are totally avoided. I surmise that YOU simply want to ban the thing from the outset and get on with something else; I, rather, want the thing brought in and dispatched with a good and well-planned rifle shot. A pure logical argument deserves a pure logical refutation.

A physical theorist wants to illuminate an accepted range of phenomena, and even uncover some new prospects; our ontodialectical theoapologist just wants to get some kind of theos in. They are clearly distinct goals.

I have no problem with what is being attempted; I care, however, about how the affair proceeds. It's a seemingly magical act, and I want to know just how the magician got the rabbit into the supposedly-empty hat.

In the end, if the ontodialectician were right, there would exist a noumenon, simply an object of the mind, but still an object. It just sits there, after careful construction for avoidance of refutation risk, part of the noumenal furniture, hardly worth a Kadosh. But I think it hasn't arrived at all from the argument, without the commission of definite and specific illicit shenanigans. I hope to learn about the logical machine and its correct operation as a result of this counterexample. The entity's lack of empirical vigor is a subordinate subdetail.

If my sayings are unconvincing, I hope it is my lack of craft rather than bad choice of road.

what else?

'empirical premises': I hope to see that phrase no more. I'm NO kind of scientific realist.

difference between 'hypothesis' and 'alleged proof': not even in contention here.

I suppose I must concede to you the right of settling the MOA contest by deciding not to play at all.

It does get tedious repeating oneself!

Regards,
ern

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman :

I assume you mean "impossible" with that last word.

I don't see how your counter-objection engages my objection. My objection is that impossibility doesn't entail self-contradictoriness.

God cannot be logically possible but not logically necessary, because then God would be contingent. God is expressly defined not to be contingent, according to McHugh's argument.

fishbulb

I simply hold that I have no reason to take seriously an argument which, prima facia, is untenable unless I am first given a reason to do so. I do not say that anything should be declared off-limits. I simply argue that we have no reason to consider an argument which purports to prove something but which is apparently groundless, unless its maker can show us otherwise.

I regard such arguments as being highly suspicious. They have all of the hallmarks of ad hoc justifications for what one happens to believe already, rather than being sincere evidentiary arguments. If McHugh's argument looks like ad hoc rationalization and he is unable or unwilling to demonstrate that it is not, I see no reason to treat it otherwise.

mattbballman

tom,

I understand that an Anselmnian-Thomistic-type God cannot exist and be contingent. And the point may be that the ontological argument may have more strength than you realize, unless one contests this type of God (e.g., Mormons contest this type of God).

And re-stating that "impossibility doesn't entail self-contradictoriness" doesn't answer the charge that you confuse logically impossible with factually impossible. The only types of impossibilities that are impossible in virtue of being synthetic (where the predicate does not refer back to the subject) cannot be logically impossible.

1. Caesar was King of England.

2. Caesar both did and did not exist.

Here, 1 is not logically impossible but is factually impossible. And 2 is a case of being self-contradictory (and, therefore, logically impossible). Describe what a logically impossible sentence would look like that is neither synthetic (like 1) nor analytic (like 2). If you can do this, then your critique will be acceptable (NOTE: The examples you gave in your previous post do not qualify for they are all synthetic statements).

matt