Talk:Ontological argument/Archive1

Clear
Well that's all clear now. (!?!!!???) Susan  purrrrr  14:07, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Heh, sorry. I'll fix it up once I excavate my philosophy book from my locker. It's an important historical fallacy, though. Also, I know nothing about editing wikis and am trying to learn, let me know when my stuff is unwanted/unclear.--PlantB 14:13, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Can't see it being unwanted & it's probably just my density defeating the undoubted logic. Don't worry - ther'll be plenty of people ready to jump on you. (see How to and note the penultimate bullet point) &mdash; Unsigned, by: SusanG / talk / contribs Susan purrrrr  (sorry)

For critisism of the Ontological Argument, see Gaunilo of Marmoutier --PlantB 18:05, 2 March 2008 (EST)

The Hulk
Could I use this argument to prove The Incredible Hulk exists?

--Bobbing up 13:02, 3 March 2008 (EST)
 * 1. Assume The Incredible Hulk does not exist.
 * 2. The Incredible Hulk is defined as "that than which no stronger can be conceived"
 * 3. "That than which no stronger can be conceived" must therefore not exist. (from 1 & 2)
 * 4. "That than which no stronger can be conceived" exists only in imagination, not in reality. (from 2 & 3)
 * 5. If "that than which no stronger can be conceived" were to exist in reality as well as in imagination, it would be even "greater".
 * 6. But that would mean "That than which no stronger can be conceived" is not "that than which no stronger can be conceived". ( From 4&5)
 * 7. "That than which no stronger can be conceived" must exist in imagination and also exist in reality for it to be the strongest thing conceivable.
 * 8. That means 'The Incredible Hulk ' both does and does not exist (from 1 & 7).
 * 9. Premise 1 cannot be true (reductio ad absurdum)
 * 10. 'The Incredible Hulk ' exists.


 * Bob, you're WAY wrong this time. Obviously everyone knows that Superman is stronger than the Hulk.  And more eloquent.  And cooler.  I don't need citations for these indisputable facts.
 * no, Superman can not be stronger than the Hulk the incredible. Because, Hulk is, by definition, the one that than which no stronger can be conceived. Bob not only proves Hulk exists but he proves that HUlk is stronger than Superman as well. --Sir artur (talk) 09:00, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Addressing your actual point, yeah, I think you could use this argument to "prove" that any super-awesome thing must exist. Breaking it down by category:  a sprinter faster than any conceivable sprinter must exist.  A planet bigger than any conceivable planet must exist.  Bodily orifices more disgusting than the most disgustingly imaginable bodily orifice must exist.  Throwing God into the mix only extends that idea to the "everything" supercategory I suppose.  I guess proponents of the argument would have to somehow demonstrate that the "everything" category is somehow special for the it to have some sort of validity.--Bayesyikes 15:26, 3 March 2008 (EST)
 * Oh come on Bayes! First off I was thinking of the Marvel Universe. And secondly I'm not at all sure that everybody recognises that Superman is stronger. With regard to the rest I will concede of course - but stronger!!?--Bobbing up 16:01, 3 March 2008 (EST)
 * SUperman can not be stronger than Hulk, because HUlk is by definition stronger than all. if Superman is imagined to be stronger than HUlk, then, by ANselm's logic, Superman does not exist.--Sir artur (talk) 09:00, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * In the interest of historical accuracy, before too much derision gets poured on poor Anselm, I'll just point out that this argument arose in a society that did not know of Aristotelian logic and categorizations. Those were only rediscovered during the following century. -- AKjeldsen Godspeed! 16:10, 3 March 2008 (EST)
 * The Hulk? I guess he's kinda strong for someone with a yellow sun.  When he gets strong enough to reverse the rotation of the Earth, survive multiple nuclear explosions, and accelerate himself to speeds that make him competitive with the Flash, I'll accept that he can hold a candle to Superman.  Technically that's totally possible; someone just has to piss him off enough for him to get that strong, right?  Maybe he just needs to read CP's upcoming article:  Affirmative action superhero .  That should do it.--Bayesyikes 20:59, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Yeah, Anselm tried to defend the Argument by saying that 'God' is a 'pure' and singular case. The Argument conveniently works only for 'God'. :P Descartes attempted to address the "paradox" (fallacy!) in his Meditation V: On the Essence of Material Things:

"Some might say 'If I take God to have all perfections, and if I take existence to be a perfection, I must take God to exist, but I needn't accept the premise that God has all perfections. Similarly, If I accept the premise that every quadrilateral can be inscribed in a circle, I'm forced to the patently false view that every rhombus can be inscribed in a circle, but I need not accept the premise.' This should not be said [...] God is the only thing whose existence belongs to its essence."

Has anyone asked the Hulk if his existence belongs to his essence? ;-)--PlantB 22:55, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Frege and existent as a predicate
It is kinda hard for me to talk about philosophical topics in english, so please excuse any sloppiness.

First of all it seems to me that the argument is stated needlessly complicated. It is in fact not just silly word play or trickery. It might become more obvious if it is stated "properly". The easiest thing would be something like this I assume...

[1]Assumption: God [defined as a being that cannot be imagined "greater"] does not exist in Reality. [2]A Being that does exist in Reality is greater than one that does not exist in Reality. [3]If something is missing a predicate that is would make it greater, than it is possible to imagine it containing that predicate. [1-2] - [4]It is possible to imagine god [a beeing that cannot be imagined "greater"] "greater". [5]This is obviously bullshit. [6]If an Assumption and true premises lead to the wrong conclusion C, and C is wrong, then the Assumption must be wrong [4-5]

[7]It is wrong that God does not exist in Reality [wich means God exists in Reality]

Premise 1 cannot be questioned [since it is an assumption] Premise 3,4,5,6 are [i think most people would doubtlessly agree] true Premise 7 follows from all the other ones.

But: Premise 2 is wrong.

The german mathematician, logician and philosopher had a striking explanation for this.

He looked at two sentences [he did in in german but anyway]

[1] The noble horses of the kaiser.--[2] the four horses of the kaiser

What does this say about the horses?---

[1] All of the horses of the kaiser are noble[2] All of the Horses of the Kaiser are four?!

The number is [even though gramatically the same] not an attribute of the horses. It means that [as Frege put it] "there are four Objects on wich the predicate "hourse of the kaiser" apllies. By now it has become clear that the number does in fact say something about the predicate not the object.

How does this help with "existent"? Well the example above applies [obviously] to all numbers. If an Objecit is "nonexistent", well then there are 0 Objects. That means that if something is characterised as "existent" it means that the predicate applies to "non-0" objects. Hence "existent" is not a predicate for objects, it is a predicate for predicates.

This is why [2]A Being that does exist in Reality is greater than one that does not exist in Reality. is wrong. It doesnt even make sense.

Hopefully i could help clarify this. It would be very sad if Freges brilliant analysis werent in here. Also a christian philosopher names Platinga refrased the Argument so that it is untouched by all of this using a modal approach, maybe this could be added aswell [the argument is still bullshit of course]


 * Interesting point. If we accept that an infinite being which does exist is greater than one which doesn't, then we'd have to assume that two gods are even better, or six gods, or a million gods, or an infinite number - therefore an infinite number of omnipotent beings must exist, which is clearly a problematic conclusion.  Anyhoo, if you want to add something about Frege to the article, go right ahead.  I'm sure others won't mind copy-editing if you're not confident writing in English.   18:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

fact tag
I'm not sure what type of citation the original tagger was looking for, but it seems like they disagreed with the conclusions being drawn and just stuck on the tag. I'd like to just remove it unless someone makes a convincing argument against it (in which case that section needs to be worked - this really isn't a citation matter). ThunderkatzHo! 20:14, 24 February 2011 (UTC) PS We really need to stop using the fact tag to state our disagreement with a point and then move on.
 * I've removed it. The article could probably do with citing something somewhere, to meet basic article quality criteria, but the fact tag was propped against a summary statement.   21:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Argument breaks itself
In addition to the numerous problems with this argument, I might have found another. It's been a little while since I took a logic class, but I would think if we start out with an assumption (1. Assume God does not exist.) and during the "proof", we show the assumption is false (9. Premise 1 cannot be true (reductio ad absurdum) ), doesn't that kinda blow up the whole thing? I'd think we'd have to throw out the entire argument if we show the original assumption to be faulty. Then again, this argument is mainly semantics and not exactly formal logic. Thoughts? (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝɯɯɐHʍoƆ 19:40, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Maratrean would agree with you, but as far as everyone else is concerned, that is the whole purpose of a reductio ad absurdum, showing that the original asumption is faulty. But if the argument did not use the premise, you would have a point — then it would just be an application of the principle of explosion. 20:02, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ahh yes I was looking at it a little backwards. I knew I was missing something in there (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝɯɯɐHʍoƆ 21:06, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Definition of God
"Greater than" is by definition a subjective idea. The argument is circular, as it assumes that there is an objective way to determine which of two entities is "greater", an assumption that is necessary in order for this definition of God to hold. Furthermore, this definition of God is inconsistent with Anselm's definition that is used in other proofs. The "first cause" does not necessary need to be greater than the results; I can build a tower bigger than myself. Nor is it consistent with the idea of the Christian God; that God is held to be omnibenevolent, in other words limited by good actions. I can conceive of a being greater than that, one with all of its powers and the ability to make both good and bad actions, therefore being greater. Mr. Anon (talk) 21:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The Most Perfect Island
How is this laughable?

This is akin to "the best island ever". If there were a unified metric for how high the quality of an island is (as determined by Cost Benefit Analysis or Multi Criteria Analysis or whatever), then there would indeed exist a "most perfect island" (as in, as close to perfect as possible).

If we are to argue that 'perfect' is entirely subjective and thus the ontological argument doesn't make sense, then that's a valid point, but we'd just be repeating the point that 'great' is subjective which we already mention somewhere else in the article. The example about unicorns also suffers from unnecessarily repeating the point that "greatest horse" is entirely subjective.

Anyone want to explain to me how this "breaking the argument" adds any useful info to the article? Because currently I think it's really unnecessary to have it. Nullahnung (talk) 10:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Change it to "the most perfect hamburger" if you like (the example I see most often). But "most perfect island" is an example commonly used in serious philosophical discussion of the ontological argument - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "Most perfect" doesn't make sense. Something's either perfect, or it isn't. It ought to be the "best of all possible hamburgers"! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 13:49, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems "the most perfect island" was put forth by Gaunilo of Marmoutiers and rather refers to "greatest conceivable island", as in, it's rooted in imagination rather than just comparing the islands already in existence and determining which one is the most close to perfect. Nullahnung (talk) 14:28, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd say that switching "perfect" with "greatest" causes problems rather than resolves them. At least "perfect" is some absolute (though probably non-existent) state whereas "greatest" is ambiguous.  Is it "biggest of its group", "most powerful" "most interesting to visit" or what?  (Would that describe Great Britain?)--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 16:12, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * My favorite definition of "perfect" is the one used by an obstetrician to assess a newborn. OB calls it "a perfect baby" and if mom is awake, she hears "my baby is perfect" when what the doc meant was "it has the right number of fingers and toes, and so forth." Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 14:43, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Then "perfect" is just satisfying all criteria. If X satisfies all but one, merely redefine the perfect X to exclude that one criteria and it becomes perfect again. But since it is just satisfying criteria, in the context of the ontological argument, "perfect" is basically defined as "existing". Even Kant saw through that one when he said you can't use "existent" as a property in the definition - it's practically spherical. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 14:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * More like "complete in all the usual parts babies are supposed to exhibit" with emphasis on "complete." I have a hard time imagining someone proposing, with a straight face, that e.g. a fully-joined upper lip be excluded from the list of criteria. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:36, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "If there were a unified metric for how high the quality of an island is (as determined by Cost Benefit Analysis or Multi Criteria Analysis or whatever), then there would indeed exist a "most perfect island" (as in, as close to perfect as possible).
 * But you could imagine one that is even closer to perfect, or absolutely perfect, period. And by the logic of the ontological argument that means that island also has to exist in reality. That is what is ridiculous. Octo8 (talk) 16:17, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I realized this a bit after I made this topic, you're right. It's just the section was not written very well (oh, look at me blaming my failure to comprehend on other people's writing! I shall withdraw from this and sit quietly in a corner). Nullahnung (talk) 16:22, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this argument has ever worked to persuade a non theist/deist.
This really looks like an argument primarily used to justify a pre-existing belief that somebody already holds rather an argument designed to persuade other people.

Apart from the inherent logical flaws, I seriously doubt that anybody believes in a God because of this argument. It smacks very much of an argument that people tell themselves or each other in order to justify what they already believe for other reasons.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 12:00, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much my sense of it too, unsupported by any sources. It's a way to reinforce and justify pre-existing belief, and not even much good at swaying someone undecided, let alone someone settled in unbelief. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Not even the Alpha Course uses the ontological argument - David Gerard (talk) 13:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps someone easily swayed by logical-ish looking arguments. Being able to conceive of some necessarily existing perfect being doesn't actually make it exist, though, sadly enough. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 14:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Denying the antecedent?
I'm not very good at logic, so correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that the following rebuttal in the article commits the fallacy of denying the antecedent:

Another objection to the argument is also quite simple: one could change the possibility premise, and flip the argument on its head: A being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and A being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world. ''It is possible that there isn’t a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)'' Therefore, possibly, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good being does not exist. ''Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being does not exist. (axiom S5)'' Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being does not exist.

Where if P entails Q,not P entails not Q.

I might be wrong about this though.PakiExMoose (talk) 14:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Is This Right?
Would the following be a reasonable (if that word can be applied) reading of Anselm's argument?

A: God is by definition perfect.

B: If He did not exist, he would be imperfect.

C: Therefore, if there is indeed a perfect God, He must exist.

D: Of course, if there is not a perfect God, He must not exist.

E: As a generalization, it is unarguably true that what exists, must exist; and what does not exist, must not exist.

F: It is just as unarguably true, of course, that if the chicken crossed the road, it was trying to get to the other side.

71.208.202.51 (talk) 15:02, 26 May 2015 (UTC)Greg Goebel

Additional Flaw (Hypothetical version of the greatest element) to add?
I noticed another flaw in this "argument", should anyone want to incorporate it to the main article: the abrahamic god which people are trying to prove, the god they think is "the greatest thing since sliced bread", they define him as "the greatest element to exist." There is a problem here: YHWH should be, according to a more accurate definition: "One version of what could HYPOTHETICALLY be the Greatest element ever." Three reasons for this are: 1 - As mentioned in "Specificity", there are other great deities in other religions, they are regarded as "the greatest thing ever" according to their own religions; so those gods are just as valid versions of what MAY be the greatest thing ever. 2 - I imagined right now a FSM-like familiar, that will produce infinite amounts of Pasta to nourish everyone and end famine. This a pretty nice idea, right? Well, too bad it seems to be just that: a mental concept, that would be unable to exist in RL due to violating so many basic natural laws: Let's call the greatest thing to exist in the universe in RL "X". How exactly could "X", that is actually part of the universe, be beyond it? How can it bend its own universe's laws of physics like wet noodles? So "X" isn't simply be what could be the greatest thing imaginable, it is the greatest thing that CAN EXIST IN RL AND ACTUALLY EXISTS.(It is similar in some ways to the unicorn argument, but with an explanation of why what already exists and is "the greatest" may not be some illogical BS) 3 - "X", which actually exists, is "The greatest thing that there currently is." But who is to say one cannot make through some way something better than X, or that X won't become in the future something even better than its current state, or that "Y" (a different element) won't become better than "X"? It is very possible that "X", the greatest thing to currently exist, IS NOT the same as "Z", "The greatest thing THAT MAY AND COULD HYPOTHETICALLY / POSSIBLY EVER EXIST ". Imadmagician (talk) 17:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

One God problem
Moved this to talk page, because it's not really a problem, but i wanted to explain without just deleting your idea.

"If a god were to be as "great" as possible, than would it not be infinitely numerous as well. If existence is a virtue, than having two of oneself in existence is surely a greater virtue."

The counter is Leibniz Law. something that is "infinitely numerous" would be indistinguishable (in a closed system) from something that is singular, but all encompassing. Both would completely fill any "vacuum" with their being, so to speak on division (or "numerousness") is meaningless. That's basically The Identity of Indiscernibles rule. Also, it would be illogical to think of 2 identical, infinitely encompassing "things" co-existing. Petey Plane (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2016 (UTC)