Jayhawker Soule

What is required to promote a logical possibility to a viable existential possibility?

Cosym

---What is required to promote a logical possibility to a viable existential possibility?---

I'm not sure what the latter part of your sentance means.

Something that is simply "possible" is not by any means necessarily actual. It is logically possible that I could have red hair, but I don't.

Note that, as usual, while one cannot conclusively prove something by reffering to its possibility, one CAN _disprove_ things this way. It isn't, for instance, logically possible that a square circle exists... and so one can't exist. Logic has an excellent bias in making proof much harder than disproof.

So I agree entirely with Hook's statement... but it isn't relevant to the proof, because this proof NEVER claims that existence should be assumed simply because something is possible, or even because ~<>G is logically contradictory. If it were, then the proof could begin and end with the axiom <>G. But it does not. That axiom alone does not allow us to conclude anything about the actual existence of G.

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Cosym ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Thanks for responding.

Kent Stevens

Naturalism wins over supernaturalism. Over the centuries we have seen how natural explanations have replaced supernatural explanations. The weather was once partly attributed to gods but is now understood in terms of physics. Supernatural entities were supposed to help determine political and military outcomes but now only natural explanations are used in the media. There was a plethora of different supernatural explanations found for the initial creation of people but now with the theory of evolution and other science we have a naturalistic explanation for this.

Supernatural explanations are not used in science because so far naturalistic explanations have been able to explain things well. Supernatural explanations have no definite proof. You may say that Jesus created the world, but someone else could say it was Allah, Brahman, Odin, or Zeus. Given the complete lack of physical evidence the creator could have been any of the above. The advantage of naturalistic explanations is that you can do experiments that provide physical evidence. The advantage of naturalistic explanations is that we can simply interpret the direct evidence that we experience.

Take the example of the fossil record. The supernatural explanation for this is that there were many floods that caused many different species to get wiped out. After each series of extinctions perhaps God created new species. Or perhaps God created the fossil record as a test of our faith in believing in God. The naturlistic explanation consistent with experience is that the fossil record is the result of the deposit of sediment and dead life forms over an immense period of time. We know that it would be an immense period of time as the deposit of sediment is a very slow process that occurs today. The naturalistic explanation in this case is the simplest and the less fantastic of the possible explanations.

Supernatural explanations undermine our everyday confidence because when we have come to a good naturalistic explanation which could be called N, it could be undermined by S where S is a supernatural joker prankster. S could be the reason that when I eat I feel less hungry and not because of my body. S could be the reason that the Sun always rises instead of astronomy. S could be the reason that we cannot walk through walls intead of the physical hardness of objects. Our confidence in a multitude of simple observations made with naturalistic explanations would be undermined with the idea that it is all due to small demons that there is no direct evidence for.

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Kent Stevens ]</p>

Adrian Selby

Cosym, I do accept the limits to be ones of logical possibility, I would not have tried the old 'Perfectly black and perfectly white?' question, or 'perfectly heavy and perfectly light?' however, if one person has a definition that decides the property of God logically possible should include perfectly heavy, then they've made a choice and not chosen perfectly light. If God cannot be maximal in contradictory properties, then the choice of properties is either justified or arbitrary, yet I've seen no evidence of justification, let alone a coherent statement of the kinds of attributes that it would make sense to associate with the concept of God, I could introduce attributes such as 'ordinary', 'fluffy', 'metallic', 'oxygenated' and these do not seem to fall in line with attributes like 'powerful' and 'wise'.

All this does not affect the logical form of the proof proffered, well, I don't really understand it if I'm honest, and did the tiniest study of modal logic many years ago, long forgotten, but I do think that the essential weakness of the argument is that it is the form only that works as a consistent piece of logic, but the statements that we put in place of the letters and symbols are the only way to get at the meaning and consequence of the proof, after all, it has a purpose, it is not just a dry exercise if it is to be taken at all seriously. I know you're not stating that the proof offers anything more than a logical validity, but still, I hope you see my point.

The deficiencies then, as I think you allude to, lie fully in trying to get a grasp of what could be meant by the 'real English' statements that form the proof when statements are inserted into its structure.

Regarding the problem a critic might have with suggesting a being as maximally large as possible cannot be possible, I don't think its quite the characterisation of my criticism, though I may be wrong.

If, in saying a being is maximally ordinary, or good, we find no way to connect the notion of 'maximal' to the notion of 'good' or 'ordinary' because the words themselves, and what is commonly represented by them are not the kinds of things about which one can attribute the word 'maximal' as a property, then the rebuttal

"It is illogical to say a being as maximally good as possible is not possible"

makes no sense because it presumes there is a sense to the statement 'as maximally good as possible' such that the statement can be criticised. Thus the critic is not so much guilty of making incoherent statements, rather, they are suggesting that statements positing God being maximal in all properties are meaningless. They are describing the meaningfulness of such statements, rather than presuming they are meaningful and somehow suggesting such statements reflect states of affairs that are not conceivable, or are false. (I may have indicated this in my first post, but consider this a development on that given what you've illustrated )

Adrian

Cosym

---however, if one person has a definition that decides the property of God logically possible should include perfectly heavy, then they've made a choice and not chosen perfectly light.---

True. But as you seem to note, these are not characteristics with intrinsic maximums, like existence is (in the modal tableu)

---If God cannot be maximal in contradictory properties, then the choice of properties is either justified or arbitrary,---

Or simply not made at all. The proof doesn't tell us about them: but that doesn't prevent it from telling us about necessary existence.

---but the statements that we put in place of the letters and symbols are the only way to get at the meaning and consequence of the proof, after all, it has a purpose, it is not just a dry exercise if it is to be taken at all seriously. I know you're not stating that the proof offers anything more than a logical validity, but still, I hope you see my point.---

I do, and it is a very important point, but I also think that the symbols, especially G in this case, DO contain enough meaning for us to be able to derive some meaningful implications from them, if the proof is indeed both valid and sound. I'm only using the symbols as a shorthand (though I did add some plain english explanation too), by convention.

---Regarding the problem a critic might have with suggesting a being as maximally large as possible cannot be possible, I don't think its quite the characterisation of my criticism, though I may be wrong.---

I know: I was simply pointing it out as a problem with criticizing the proof in general in that way.

---Thus the critic is not so much guilty of making incoherent statements, rather, they are suggesting that statements positing God being maximal in all properties are meaningless.---

The thing is, though, the proof's definition simply "eats up" whatever properties ARE meaningful. That's part of its appeal to logicians: that instead of couching everything in unintelligible supernatural language, it simply gloms up whatever is logically possible.

If one isn't meaningful, then, of course, toss it out. But it certainly IS meaningful for maximal characteristics, like "power" or even "knowledge." And the core of the proof: the definition of necessary existence, is certainly immune from this sort of criticism.

Adrian Selby

i just love 'gloms up'

Mike

If you are taking all possible characteristics together, if there is an "and" between each assertion, then maximum possible simply implies a perfect balance. Thus one may be as fluffy as one can possibly be given that he is also metallic, and vice versa. Water may be a good example as it is both hydrogen and oxygen, but too extreme in either direction it can lose one or the other quality, and cease to be water. Water cannot be completely hydrogen and still be water, but it can be as completely hydrogen as possible and still be oxygen as well. Thus one can theoretically be maximally balanced on all dichotomous variables.

Wyrdsmyth

Hi Andrew, nice to see you again.

I'm not going to respond to your OP, since so many others already have, but I just wanted to say welcome back.

ex-preacher

Mike,

Given that you are metallic, I find you to be as fluffy as you can be.