sewi li lon anu seme ?

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janKipo
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by janKipo »

Ah, the old "free-will is a greater good" weasel! It doesn't really help since it destroys one or the other or several or omnipotence, omniscience and perfect goodness or benevolence. (So, yes, it does make the argument unsound, if true -- for which there is limited grounds.) And, of course, if you give up those you are dealing with a very different sewi from the usual one. No more likely to exist -- unless you go a long way from the big three -- but very different still. The argument I offered is valid, so you must think some of the premises are false, but that seems unlikely in the usual arguments of this sort since it gives up the big three again. It is worth noting that the free-will issue need not arise here at all since there are enough natural evils to take care of the case.
Alvin from Calvin was (maybe still is, though he is older than I am) a decent logician and a theologian only slightly knocked loopy by his inherited predestinationalism. Most of the modal specialists I know (Prior, Kripke, Montague, ...) thought there are serious flaws in his proof (and in all the others, of course). I haven't looked at it in a decade or so, so I can't comment on the details.
I didn't say (I hope) that existence is a property and you clearly don't think that given your defense of your definitions, but Anselm does seem to have needed that to make his argument work since merely making something with a property be the value of a bound variable (in modern terms) have that property more doesn't make any sense in any ancient or modern logical system.
loteni
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by loteni »

Freewill is one consideration yeah. I do not think this makes any kind of mess with omni properties, having various abilities and acting upon them are different concerns. There are other considerations though, what is the good intended ? It is easy to assume it something like having fewer stubbed toes, but there is no reason to think it isn't something like eternal union with God, in which case this type of world may well be the most efficient way of achieving that. Since to argue from the ike present, to the nonexistance of God, requires too many assumptions from the perspective of God, it is not very popular today. There is though, the popular evil God argument, but the problem with that is that the scope of these types of argument tend to be is there a God or not, proposing an evil God is still proposing a God. Although once the two parties agree there is a God, I suppose arguments along those lines would come into play. Ofcourse this works both ways, arguments for the existance of God based on what we should think he would do, are similarly weak, for the same reasons.

Right. Sorry if I misread you. I merely wanted to avoid the use of anslems version, since it is open to all sorts of criticisms that although can be defended agaisnt, it is just easier to start from the modern modal version, and get to the current dialogue of the concerns of the argument. Regarding these, I think even in the past, people wonder about this argument, and figure it must be some kind of trick, something that they are merely failing to see. Most people who do not want to accept the argument of course are fine to just think, that even if they do not know what is wrong with the argument, there is a flaw in it, that will in time be discovered.

Here's the flaw: it's word play trick! You can notice this if you see how it is popularly presented, hence;

1. The formal argument is presented.
2. It is shown to be a valid argument.
3. The only real concern is if proposition 1 is true.

Afterwards, you propose the question ; "So it is even possible that God, exists" ?

The word "possible" has two different meanings;

1. It has a well defined technical meaning in the argument, from modal logic. This is that it is true that there is atleast one world, where entity can be found.
2. It has a very similar but completely different meaning as we use it in conversational english.

In 2, the entity might not even be possible. In 1, it is definitely possible.

So proposition 1 can confuse people, it is "heavier" than the standard english interpretation requires. Believing proposition 1 to be true is a stronger commitment than when we merely believe something is "possible" in normal conversational english.

Getting into worries about how it is defined or if said properties may or may not conflict, is not really important. Sure if you could prove the conjunction of said properties are contradictory, but no one has done that, so you just get side tracked trying to reduce the probability of proposition 1, whereas its is easier to just clarify that proposition 1 is heavier than the english reading seems it to be.

[added]
Notice I am not claiming the argument is a fallacy of equivocation. The argument doesnt do that. Our brains do. In our mind we confuse the two different senses of the word.
Follower of the official dialect of toki pona as presented in the official book; Toki Pona, The Language of Good by Sonja Lang.
janKipo
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by janKipo »

OK, let's consider proposition 1 in a substantial modal logic. There is a world in which an entity is God, i.e., which is in the extension of the predicate "is God". Now, either this predicate is unconnected to other predicates or it is part of a web of implications with other predicates, not just in this world but extra-systematically. In the first case, knowing that something is God doesn't tell us a thing about what it is like; it could be anything or totally unlike anything. In the second case, we have the question of what these connections are and whether, first of all, they are compatible,i.e. ,is"is God" a predicate which can be instantiated in some world. So I can see, this has not been done for any plausible meaning,and the most usual meaning has been shown not to be compatible. So, the first premise just fails even under the most rigorous rules.
loteni
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by loteni »

If you want to claim God as the omni3 entity cannot be instantiated, then you can ofcourse. However as far as I am aware no one has been able to sufficiently support such a claim, so claims of contradiction of omni3 properties are not taken seriously anywhere but meme type youtube posts :P

Of course, on the other hand, clearly instantiation in any world at all, requires instantiation in all of them, as per definition, but again its not necessarily even that heavy, since different worlds are different so God of Wi has perspective and expression i in that world, so it's a bit lighter again... The question is really how much of a commitment you need to make to accept proposition 1. On the face of it seems not much, and that is true it is not as much as you believe pre-this argument, but due to brain trickery with the word "possible" it is a bit more than you might at first think.

Just ignoring all that and thinking about the omni properties are going to lead down an unproductive road. There is almost surely nothing contradictory about those properties. You have to add in caveats to make them contradictory and it is easy to just deny said caveats.

Of course if you could actually show such a contradiction, then that would be worth talking about, and of course a totally different and much more important topic.
Follower of the official dialect of toki pona as presented in the official book; Toki Pona, The Language of Good by Sonja Lang.
janKipo
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by janKipo »

Well, of course, I think that the argument I gave shows that the three properties are not compossible if anything bad actually happens, as it does. So, since there can be a world in which nothing bad happens, I suppose God could exist in that world. But that pretty clearly does not have any implictions for any other world, in particular not for one in which bad things happen.
Of course, you can say that the big 3 don't mean what the argument says they mean, but then, what do they mean? A perfectly good being who did not wish for good for all would pretty clearly not be perfectly good (and maybe not good at all). And similarly for the other properties.
If there is a trick in the ontological argument, it is the assumption that because a being is all-powerful in one world, he can do things in other worlds. But power is this-worldly, so, even if he can do anything he wants in one world (assuming he knows enough not to want contradictory or paradoxical things), this says nothing about other worlds. So the argument (if it goes like this) just cheats by taking an object language property and treating it as a metalanguage one, about other (even all) worlds. So, yes, equivocation.
loteni
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by loteni »

Possibly valuing freedom of choice/action is more valuable than zero "bad things". Possibly not all bad things are bad for the growth of the free creatures in the long run. etc... There are lots of possibly reasons why "bad things" might still happen in a world where such an entity exists. With these kinds of arguments you have to show there are is no possible reason for any "bad things" to happen if such an entity exists in that world, if you want to adequately put forth the claim that those properties cannot be simultaneously had by entity in a world where "bad things" still happen.

To prove a contradiction is occurring is not always so easy, you have to show there is no possible interpretation where such things can occur together. Showing one interpretation to be not possible, is not to show there is a contradiction.

Although I agree the argument gets an easy time because of these rules of modal logic, we can't say it cheats, because it follows those generally accepted rules. It doesn't really equivocate here at all.

If there is any equivocation it is merely in our minds about how we read the terms of logic into our conversational minds.
Follower of the official dialect of toki pona as presented in the official book; Toki Pona, The Language of Good by Sonja Lang.
janKipo
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by janKipo »

It is clear that anything that (in fact) requires bad things to happen can be achieved, in theory, without those bad things happening. The only dodge seems to be free will, but that doesn't work either since 1) it is not clear that we have free will (or even, on examination, the illusion of it) 2) its supposed benefits can be achieved without all the pain and suffering (see above). The long run argument just doesn't count against the absolute badness of bad (and the supposed absolute goodness of God). So, as I said, if there is badness, there is no big 3 God. Fiddling with obvious truths just doesn't get anywhere, no matter how loud you say they make a difference. They don't.

If the argument is in a standard modal logic, then it equivocates because it takes a property in the language, which thus is interpreted in each world separately and somehow (equivocation seems the obvious route) makes it a property across worlds. In effect, it goes from PossExGx to NecExGx on the basis of some property that is only evaluated in one world at a time. The most you could hope for is that there is a property that implies, within the system NecEx a=x, for anything a that has that property. But there is no reason to think that there is such a property or even that the claim is well-formed. I haven't seen this tried in a higher order Montague logic, where some fairly weird stuff is possible, but I doubt it works even there.
loteni
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by loteni »

It is not clear that anything that happens with bad things happening can be achieved without those bad things happening... if you have children, you sometimes have to raise you voice and tell them off... it is just as clear what you think is clear is not true lol.

Again trying to prove freewill doesnt exist for a mere tiny part of your burden of providing the proof of contradition, should get you to realise just how futile trying to show a contradiction in these properties actually is.

Anyway to show a contradiction you cannot just assert "it is clear"... you have to actually show every possible interpretation is false... and no one has managed that at all, not by want of trying... but good luck.. if you insist on trying... you just need to follow the rules of proving something is actually a contradiction. Try to think logically, it is easy to fall into sweeping conversation style claims, but you tend to fall prone to invalid reasoning when you do that. It doesnt take much to realise you don't really have any chance of supporting the claim that omni3 is a contradiction...

Aye it seems unfair you can setup these definitions in standard modal logic, but you can. It doesnt actually break any rules. And yes it is setup in a clever two step way, that avoids any breaking of any rules ;)

But yeah essentially we are left with this;

1. the argument is definitely valid.
2. the entity can not be shown to be contradictory.


So the atheist is left with making the claim; it is impossible that God exists !
Follower of the official dialect of toki pona as presented in the official book; Toki Pona, The Language of Good by Sonja Lang.
janKipo
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by janKipo »

Well, what actually happens here and now doesn't speak much to what is possible. Yes, I have to raise my voice, in fact, but it is possible that my children (actually only one and much bigger and stronger than I am) would behave themselves without this threat. So, it is obvious;

As I keep pointing out, the argument from evil is valid and no plausible arguments to make some premise of it false holds up.

But let's look at the basic argument. I'll do this fairly informally since it is easier to follow, but I'll try to put in all the steps.
There is a property, G, say, that amounts to "exists in all possible worlds". We need to take a fairly broad view of what worlds are possible, though not just "every state description" since that prejudges some issues, since, for every property, there is at least one state description in which nothing has that property, and, of course, we omit the empty world. I suppose that, to make things easier, we can assume that the list of individuals is transcendental, that is, that individuals are available to be referred to in various ways even if they have no properties in a given world (there are a dozen other ways to do this, but this is easiest -- and most generous -- for now). We also assume that all possible worlds are accessible from all other possible worlds.
So, premise: in this world, a, it is possible that something has the property G. That is, is, there is a world b in which there is a thing, g, say, of which it is true in b that it exists in every possible world. So, in particular, it is true in b that it exists in a. So, it is possible that the thing that exists in every possible world (has the property G) in b exists in this world, a, as well. But nothing in this guarantees that it has the property G in a, only that it is the same thing as has that property in b. Of course, this argument can be repeated for all possible worlds, so that it turns out to be necessary (i.e., true in all possible worlds) that it is possible that g exists in each possible world. But, more to the point, nothing here says that g actually does exist in any of these worlds, except b, of course, since 'g exists in c' is assumed true only in b and thus is only possible in c, for every world c other than b. So, it is (assuming that Gg is even possible) that Gg is necessarily possible. I haven't gone back into my misspent youth enough to recall or figure out what would happen if NPp => Np, but it looks to be a very strong modal claim and not one that can just be assumed to make this argument work (and the analogies all fail). The same applies to NPp => p directly.
loteni
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Re: sewi li lon anu seme ?

Post by loteni »

Well, yeah I am not saying that the argument from any kind of evil fails, or is weak or is anything. I do not need to make any such claim. I just need to make the claim that its foundational premise is not 100% certain, which it has not been shown to be. As long as that is the case, then the omni3 properties together are not a contradiction. So given those properties are not a contradiction then God is at least possible, which is exactly all the premise 1 of this argument requires.

Secondly, yes, that is completely true. We can see this as the whole argument walks through from premise 1 via the definitions of God, from existing in one possible world and bang straight to existing in all them all, yeah necessity is some how part of that definition as you point out. If we assume God is merely possible, ie he exists in one possible world we are carrying with that the notion that if that entity exists in one, it exists in them all. Of course its a very strong claim.

There is no logical flaw with the argument, it is just possible to make arguments such that, the main premise of the argument looks to require less commitment than it actually does.

The only real question is this; is it a "good argument". Well the believer would probably already understand God in this way, that is for anything that is a possible state of affairs, God would exist. Things which would be counter to Gods qualities would be impossible states of affairs..etc.... They likely already realise believing in God from this understanding of God, is something quite easy to do.
The non-believer if this argument helps them grasp what it is we mean by "God", might come to realise that God is easier to believe in than thought of for such things like flying pasta monsters, and so to help them understand the concept and come to realise God is an easier proposition to accept than they previously considered. It may well be a good argument. Even if it is not a simple one.

On the other hand, a non-believer might think that the set of possible state of affairs are rather drab, and be surprised to learn believers actually don't believe in a lot of these possibilities because they believe God exists, and so come to think that it is harder to believe in a God so defined than they initially thought it would be, if God was something like a pasta monster.

Eitherway, atleast it is sufficient to communicate to intelligent atheists the difference between the kind of pasta monster type of god that no one believes in, but they often think we believe in, and the actual kind of God we actually believe in. If atleast the atheist has the power of mind to comprehend the argument.
Follower of the official dialect of toki pona as presented in the official book; Toki Pona, The Language of Good by Sonja Lang.
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