So what do you think of the new revision for the first part of the argument? — MoK

Well, it's like the argument's domain of discourse is placing God and the act of creation on equal footing, in the sense that both of them could be individual constants that are ranged over by some variables. It's a bit of a slippery slope, since it also seems that the creation mentioned in P2, as well as the situation mentioned in C1 and C2, are also within that domain of discourse. Ideally, you would want to have the least number of elements populating your domain of discourse, and you would want to delegate almost everything else to the predicate letters. So I'm unsure as to what would be a good formalization of your argument.

In any case, it would be a small minority which does not think natural reason can do a lot of work on such questions. For example, those who met Jesus during his Earthly life and came to believe that he is divine were not working apart from their natural reason. — Leontiskos

I don't understand what you mean here. Can you please elaborate on this point, specifically?

The concept of belief is foreign to the formal sciences. — Arcane Sandwich


Participation in a philosophy forum is not a formal science. Premises which no one believes, such as FTI1, are useless. Their highest level of function is as a strawman. — Leontiskos

I'll just insist on what I said earlier: the truth value of a proposition (be it a premise or a conclusion) is not determined by our beliefs. As for participation in a philosophy forum not being a formal science, I haven't claimed the contrary.

Not quite. I haven't started a thread on the topic because I know that the moon is not made of lasagna. So does everyone else. — Arcane Sandwich


But you're skipping around the question. What if you didn't know it is not, but you didn't believe it is. And you knew that no one else believed it is. Would you start a thread on the topic? — Leontiskos

I don't understand what you mean here either. Can you elaborate on this other point as well?

(Lack of belief is sufficient; recourse to knowledge is a different issue. The concept of knowledge is arguably as foreign to the formal sciences as the concept of belief.) — Leontiskos

I beg to differ. Knowledge, unlike belief, is not foreign to the formal sciences. By doing math (and logic), we gain knowledge. That is the main purpose of the sciences, both formal and factual: to gain knowledge. It might just so happen that we gain new beliefs, or discard old beliefs, but that's beside the point.

Try using the Block Universe to prove it. — PoeticUniverse

Why would I do that?

Thanks :up:

I have not come across Mario Bunge before, but he seems to be a great thinker. Will have readings on the quotes you provided in the post, as they seem to be much relevant on the topic. Gracias. — Corvus

He's the philosopher that has inspired my own philosophy the most.

1) ∃x∃y(Ex ∧ My ∧ (x=y)) — Arcane Sandwich


Notice that this allows that there might be more than one evening star and more than one morning star?

∃x(Ex∧Mx∧∀z(Ez→z=x)∧∀w(Mw→w=x)) might work. — Banno

Yup, nice catch. We could use the uniqueness quantifier ∃! (alternatively, ∃₌₁) to make your formula a bit easier on the eyes.

What does "A" mean here? Does "Ag" mean that God is the creator? If yes, I think it is useful to keep this in mind and see how things evolve. — MoK

"A" means "causes the act of creation", so "Ag" means "God causes the act of creation".

I spent the whole morning trying to rewrite the first part of the argument. — MoK

I'm not sure if I should encourage you to keep working on it, or if I should tell you to take a break from this argument and to occupy your mind with something else.

P1) God exists
D1) The act of creation is defined as an act of creating the creation from nothing
P2) The creation exists
C1) Therefore, there is a situation in which the creation does not exist (from D1 and P2)
C2) Therefore, there is a situation in which God only exists (from P1 and C1) — MoK

Here's my two cents. Ideally, you would want to use propositional logic to formalize your arguments. You should only use predicate logic when propositional logic is insufficient for your purposes. Think of it like this: why would you use a formula one race car to go to the supermarket, when an ordinary car is enough for that purpose?

C1) ¬∃x(¬(x=g)) — Arcane Sandwich

I have a difficult time understanding this one. Could you please write this one in English? — MoK

It means: there is no x, such that x is not identical to God.

But Einstein believed in non-Euclidean geometries, so the premise fails. No one is objecting to Einstein talking about something he believes in, but after all, Einstein did not talk about the moon being made of lasagna. — Leontiskos

The concept of belief is foreign to the formal sciences. Einstein's beliefs about those geometries aren't what makes them suitable for his conceptualization of spacetime.

Truths that no one believes are irrelevant to a philosophy forum, for they cannot be spoken of. — Leontiskos

If such were the case, then Socrates would not be welcome here, for example.

Then why haven't you started a thread on the topic? (Hint: it's because the topic is irrelevant. Why? Because it does not bear on anyone's beliefs.) — Leontiskos

Not quite. I haven't started a thread on the topic because I know that the moon is not made of lasagna. So does everyone else. By contrast, I don't know if Jesus is God. Christians claim to know that he is. However, when I ask them for logical arguments, they point me in the direction of Anselm and Aquinas, for example. But those philosophers never offered a proof for the conclusion that Jesus is God, they have only offered proofs for the conclusion that God exists. At this point, I'm told that there are no such arguments, because the thesis that Jesus is God is a revealed truth. My counter-point to that is that the thesis that God exists is also a revealed truth. And yet it isn't incompatible with a logical deduction. Otherwise, what are Anselm and Aquinas doing then, when they offer their arguments for the existence of God? My point is that the same would seem to be the case for the idea that Jesus is God.

And that's why it didn't make any sense to talk about them. — Leontiskos

Yet Einstein's conceptualization of spacetime is based on the development of non-Euclidean geometries, particularly Riemann's ideas.

Are you saying that you believe FTI1? Because again, if not and no one else believes it, then it looks to approximate a strawman rather than something fit for discussion. — Leontiskos

No, I don't believe FTI1. And even if I did, what I believe (and what anyone else believes) is irrelevant to the truth value of that premise.

For example, should we conduct a dialogue on the question of whether the moon is made of lasagna? No, of course not. Why? Because no one believes such a thing. And using "the moon is made of lasagna" as a premise in an argument would be equally pointless, given that it has no bearing on anyone's beliefs. — Leontiskos

It doesn't matter if we believe that the moon is made of lasagna or not. What matters is if the statement "the moon is made of lasagna" has a corresponding fact in the external world. It doesn't, so it's false. It has nothing to do with out beliefs.

Feel free to disagree though.

What use is there in asking people to consider a proposition that no one believes, not even oneself? It seems like putting something on the food menu that isn't edible. — Leontiskos

No one believed in non-Euclidean geometries during the 19th Century, not even their own pioneers. On the contrary, those mathematicians wanted to prove that the negation of Euclid's fifth postulate would eventually lead to a contradiction. It didn't. To everyone's surprise, there was more to geometry than what Euclid had said. A similar situation happened later with logic, specifically with the development of non-Aristotelian systems (such as paraconsistent logic).

Shorter: math and logic don't care about our beliefs. So we should feel free to explore their uncharted territories, and to do so with whatever beliefs we would like to have in mind while doing so.

I think you'll find that Christians make relevant arguments. In Aquinas' day they argued against Islam, because Islam was popular. In the Enlightenment period they argued against Rationalism. Nowadays there are a lot of people claiming that Jesus was not divine, and so Christians tend to argue in that direction — Leontiskos

I'm aware of that. Yet arguing against non-Christian beliefs is not the same thing as arguing for Christian beliefs.

Here is an example from two days ago. — Leontiskos

Interesting reference, I'll try to read it tomorrow.

It can't be proved; they need to get a life! — PoeticUniverse

I have offered one such proof in the OP of this Thread, and I have done so without even being a Christian philosopher. Sure, it's a rather humble proof, but it's still a proof.

There is no single argument that proves both FTI2 and FTI3, considered as propositions. Anselm's is arguing for FTI2. — Leontiskos

Speaking in general, the conclusion of one argument can be a premise of a different argument, and vice-versa. Furthermore, there's no need to prove both FTI2 and FTI3 in a single argument. I'm aware that Anselm argues for FTI2. In that sense, his argument works as a defense for anyone who wishes to resist FTI2 in the argument that I offered in the OP of this Thread, which argues for FTI3. It's not an either/or type of deal.

And another way to critique your FTI1 is to say that essentially no one believes it. — Leontiskos

Doesn't matter. The way I see it, logic has nothing to do with belief, just as math doesn't have anything to do with belief. The notion of belief is foreign to the formal sciences. Mathematical truths are still truths even if no one believes in them. The same goes for logical truths.

At least I don't know of any group that believes God is necessarily identical to Jesus (even ignoring the problematic Trinitarian theology here). Christians themselves do not generally claim that the Incarnation was theologically necessary. Or else think about the fact that everyone without exception would agree that FTI1 was false before Jesus was born, and that if God existed before Jesus of Nazareth was born then strict identity cannot obtain. — Leontiskos

Well, my intention with the OP in this thread isn't to settle every single issue there is to settle in Christian philosophy, or in non-Christian philosophy. I'm just planting some seeds here. Don't expect to harvest the fruits as soon as the seeds have been planted. It would be unrealistic to do so. One of the plants will die, or perhaps both of them will die. In that case, what I planted may serve as nutrients for the germination and maturing of better seeds (i.e., better arguments, both Christian and non-Christian).

The difficulty here is that the existence of God is a very modern preoccupation, whereas the divinity of Jesus has been a perennial question. In a perennial sense the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus are two quite separate questions. — Leontiskos

Indeed, but my opinion is that throughout the centuries, Christian philosophers have been solely preoccupied with proving that God exists, without being equally preoccupied with proving that God is Jesus Christ. And they should, because otherwise, what makes them Christian philosophers, instead of theistic philosophers in general?

The way I see it, the "problem" (if it can be called that) with Anselm's argument is that it's too generic: it doesn't manage to conclude that God is Jesus Christ, and this is exactly what I would expect from a Christian philosopher. In other words, proving that God exists is only half of the problem. The other half is proving that God is Christ.

For example, a Muslim philosopher wouldn't try to refute Anselm's argument. Why would he? He believes in God just as much as Anselm does. It that sense, he would accept the argument in question. And so would a Jewish philosopher, and so would a monotheist Pagan philosopher.

If we don't specify who God is (Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, the Rainbow Serpent, etc.) then every theist can accept Anselm's argument, no matter what the details of their religión are.

It is fun, I'll admit; trying out arguments like moving chess pieces across the board. Especially when you're skilled, or have the necessary focus, which, I admit, I am not. — ENOAH

Feel free to not focus in this thread, you're allowed to go off the rails here. I think I can put the thread back on track if it gets derailed.

The message of love, highlighted by the sacrifice, triggers us to love our species and act in ways which promote its survival and growth. — ENOAH

Shouldn't we love other species just as much as we love our own species? For example, I don't think that factory farming is ethical.

And Lawson was a city boy. — Banno

A City Daddy then. Maybe Banjo Paterson would be the Bush Daddy then. I'm not trying to be offensive, nor am I trying to go off topic, I'm just curious to understand how your mind works.

Or here's another example, maybe closer to home. Would you call Henry Lawson a Bush Daddy?

Yeah, but it's like, would you call the Rainbow Serpent a Sky Daddy? If yes, then can you really blame Aboriginal Australians if they take exception to that?

Yeah I don't put much stock in AI to begin with.

Well, I mean, I can see where is coming from. Calling the Sky Father a Sky "Daddy" is like saying that it's a Sugar Daddy but in the sky, so it's understandable that people might take exception at that term.

Well, I mean, it's not my term, I didn't invent it.

The technical term, in philosophy of religion, as well as comparative mythology, is Sky Father. In this sense, it contrasts with the Earth Mother.

I'd call it something like "logical reductionism", or something along those lines, something that sounds more "politically correct" but without losing too much bite. But I'm more moderate than Bunge in that sense. I'm sure that he would have called it "logical supremacism" if it had occurred to him.

Yeah, Bunge always cracks me up with those labels. He wanted to coin the term "logical imperialism" as a technical term. Obviously no one except for him actually uses it. Be that as it may, "logical imperialism" refers to the belief that the existential quantifier means both "some" as well as "exists" in a metaphyisical sense. He didn't have to call it "logical imperialism", he could have easily chosen a less polemical word. But that's Bunge's attitude in a nutshell. I think it's a riot, but most people hate his guts because of it.

:100: It's really difficult to articulate such things into words, but Norman Fischer is clearly talented in that sense. Nonetheless, one can detect that he's struggling to find the words to express the underlying idea here. But he's way better at that than me, that's for sure.

No problem, happy to help :up:

Very insightful. Well, but at least you can enjoy the aurora borealis, right? That has to have some positive effect on the mental health of the northern peoples.

"Natural" as in "understandable" -- and I do tend to think of human beings as animals, and that insofar that a human being can conceive of something more than the basic life process they will, naturally, come to want more than a biological existence. — Moliere

José Ortega y Gasset spoke of a distinction between what he called "biological life" and "biographical life".

We humans are more or less similar as far as our biological lives go. As you so eloquently said, all of us eat, shit, sleep, fuck, and die. Well, perhaps not everyone fucks, at least not on a regular basis, but you get my point.

It's our biographical lives that make us truly different. You and I are more or less biologically similar. Yet we are biographically quite different. Your biography is almost completely different from my biography. The circumstances in which you were born and raised are not the same circumstances in which I was born and raised. The circumstances which currently surround your everyday activities are not the same circumstances that currently surround my everyday activities.

it's a natural desire to want more than to eat, shit, sleep, fuck, and die. — Moliere

Is it? I'd say that it's an unnatural desire. It's a human desire. It doesn't seem to be the case that other animals share that same desire. So how could it be natural? Unless such a desire is part of human nature. But we humans are not just humans.

Well, speaking for myself, I happen to live in a geographical region that is not as climatically castigated as the region that you live in. And by that I mean that it's not snowing all the time. Snow is beautiful, sure. But I'd probably be somewhat depressed if all I ever saw outside was snow.

The thing with religious experiences (speaking only from my own personal experiences) is that they sort of impose themselves upon you, whether you're an atheist or not. Granted, I've only had them under the influence of psychoactive drugs. But it's not like my state of mind was "alright, I'm going to choose to experience the world from a religious perspective", instead you just sort of "have" the experience, in the same way that you just sort of "have" a visual experience whenever you look at an object, such as your kitchen table, for example.

I have an anthropological theory (an untested theory, which could of course turn out to be false) about this. My theory is that religious experiences are somehow rooted in the anatomy and neurochemistry of our brains. Specifically, in the most "primitive" parts, the parts that we have in common with non-human vertebrates, such as other mammals, and some species of birds. My wager is that those animals tend to live in a sort of zen-like state, more or less as described by . Why are we not like them, in our ordinary lives? Precisely because of the more "human" parts of our brains. The humanized parts of our brains are like a double edged-sword: on the one hand, they allow us to live in a more rational way. They are responsible for our science, technology, art, and philosophy. However, they also sort of "disconnect" us from our more primal, animalistic nature. Shorter: our extra-ordinary experiences are ordinary for non-human animals, and our ordinary experiences are extra-ordinary for non-human animals.

But this is just a theory, it could be false, and it probably is.

Since all of our brains are different — Moliere

Are they really that different? Granted, they're not identical, as in, you and I don't have the same brain. But they're quite similar. They're human brains, aren't they? Your brain has a temporal lobe, my brain has a temporal lobe. Your brain has two hemispheres (left and right), my brain has two hemispheres (left and right). Your brain has a pineal gland, my brain has a pineal gland. And so forth.

I think we have a shared world — Moliere

Sure. And perhaps the similarities of our brains are, in part, responsible for that shared world. That's another way to think about it. We both speak English, but we also have similar brains, at least anatomically, and I'd argue that their neurochemistry is similar as well.

There's no science which will tell us which mystic is right — Moliere

Maybe Reality (with a capital "R") is like a multi-faceted crystal, such that each mystic perceives one facet at a time. It's not that one of them is right and the other one is wrong, maybe each of them perceives just a small part of what (and I) call "the great perfection".

But for all of these people the sciences will remain relatively invariant. — Moliere

Notice that there's also something else that seems to remain invariant: religious experiences seem to be distributed worldwide. There are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that have never had any contact with tribes in West Africa. Yet both tribes have their own religions, with their corresponding religious experiences. And we could also mention native Australian tribes, which have never had any contact with the Amazonian or the African tribes. And they have religious experiences as well. How is that even possible? What is the explanation for this phenomenon? Is it just a coincidence?

Thank you very much for your interest and offering to help me write the argument in first-order predicate logic. — MoK

Sure, no problem. Happy to help :up:

What do you mean by "C" here? I guess by "g" you refer to God and by "a" you mean the act of creation. Please correct me if I am wrong. — MoK

Indeed. The predicate letter "C" means "causes", in this case. So, Cga means "God causes the act of creation". I'd prefer not to use "C" as a two-place predicate, but you need something that relates "g" and "a". You might even want to ditch "a", and simply say: Ag. That's another possibility.

I think this step means that there is an x such that x is God. My C1, however, says a different thing. There is x such that there exists a God and nothing else. — MoK

I see. In principle, you have several different alternatives, as far as formalization goes. Instead of symbolizing God with an individual constant "g", you could instead use a predicate letter, "G" like so:

C1) ∃x∀y(Gy ↔ (x=y))

Now C1 is no longer tautological. But if you do this, then P1 and D1 would have to be rewritten. Another option is to keep "g" for "God", and to formalize C1 like so:

C1) ∀x(x=g)

Alternatively, you could say:

C1) ¬∃x(¬(x=g))

These are not tautologies either. What's a bit confusing is the way that you're expressing some of these ideas. For example, when you say:

Perhaps changing C1 from " Therefore, there is a state of affairs where there is nothing but God" to " Therefore, there is a state of affairs where there exists God but nothing else". That is what I meant by the first form but perhaps the second form is more clearer. — MoK

Is the state of affairs in question something different from God? If it is, then it's not true that only God exists and nothing else, since there would exist a state of affairs. In other words, you'd have two things 1) God, and 2) the state of affairs itself.
On the other hand, if you want to say that there is only God, then you have two options: 1) to declare that God is identical to the state of affairs itself, or 2) to drop the notion of a state of affairs entirely, at least here.

"I'll take you to a place where we can find our roots."

That "happiness" that we are said to have in this country (see Finland tops world happiness ranking for 7th year in a row). — ssu

It is now often known as the ‘world’s happiest country’, but Finland used to have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. — The Guardian

I'm trying to see how your argument could be formalized. Clearly, propositional logic is insufficient here. So, we need, at the very least, first order predicate logic (if not second order or higher order). Be that as it may, let's focus on the first part, if only for the sake of simplicity. How would you formalize the following?

P1) The act of creation is caused by an agent so-called God
D1) This act is defined as an act of creation of something from nothing
C1) Therefore, there is a state of affairs where there is nothing but God (from P1 and D1) — MoK

One possibility could be the following one:

P1) Cga
D1) a = _df c(s,n)
C1) ∃x(x=g)

I don't think this would be a good formalization, because even though it's valid, you wouldn't need P1 and D1 to conclude C1, because C1 is tautological.

So, I'd like to know how you would formalize your own argument.

As you say, impossible to really describe, and even to remember, in some ways. Although one vivid memory that stays with me was seeing something like 'the great perfection' - this sudden realisation of the overwhelming beauty of all nature, one morning at dawn, looking at a young sapling growing from the crevice in a moss-covoured rock. Along with the realisation that we're generally dead to that beauty because of the weight of habituation — Wayfarer

Would you believe me if I told you that I more or less know what you're talking about here, and that I've had a similar experience? Especially in relation to this part:

seeing something like 'the great perfection' — Wayfarer

I've seen it myself. And I would even use those same words, more or less. I've experienced it as such. But I should emphasize once again that this isn't an ordinary experience, it's an exceedingly rare one, and I've only had it under very specific conditions. It's not like I can see 'the great perfection', as you have called it, when I'm doing my taxes or when I'm at the supermarket.

But I'm hesitant to say it's just something going on in the brain -- that's not what is being claimed. — Moliere

True, it's not what's being claimed, but is that the only (or the main) reason why you're hesitant to say that it's just something going on in the brain?

This is a very difficult topic, so I'll just quote the opinion of someone who is a better philosopher than me:

More precisely, according to Leibniz, space is the “order” of coexistents, and time that of successives. Hence, the scientific materialist adds, if there were no things there would be no space; and if nothing changed there would be no time. Moreover, for either to exist there must be at least two distinct items: two things in the case of space, and two events in that of time. — Bunge (2006: 244)

So, spatiality and temporality are vicariously just as material, and therefore just as real, as the properties of the material objects that generate them; only, they have no independent existence. — Bunge (2006: 245)

So much for our outline of a relational theory of spacetime. Such a theory is not only relational but also compatible with relativistic physics, in that (a) it assumes the structure of spacetime to depend upon its furniture, and (b) it does not postulate a global structure. However, the theory is not relativistic: it does not include any of the special laws characterizing the various relativistic theories, such as for example the frame independence of the velocity of light, or the equations of the gravitational field. The relational theory of spacetime sketched above is just a component of the background of any general-relativistic theory- if one cares to add such an ontological background. Physicists usually don't: they are in the habit of postulating the four-manifold without inquiring into its roots in events. — Bunge (1977: 308)

The evening star is the morning star. Isn't it a tautology and also contradiction, but a true statement? — Corvus

My opinion (and I could be wrong) on this classic problem is that it depends on how we formalize the problem. Consider a first case:

1) ∃x∃y(Ex ∧ My ∧ (x=y))
Which means: There is an x, and there is a y, such that x is the evening star, and y is the morning star, and x is identical to y. In this case, "to be the evening star" is not the same predicate as "to be the morning star", because the predicate letter "E" is not identical to the predicate letter "M". So, we are not dealing with a tautology here, it's instead a contingent proposition (that happens to be true).

Now consider a second case:

2) ∃x∃y((x=e) ∧ (y=m) ∧ (x=y))
Which means: There is an x, and there is a y, such that x is identical to the evening star, and y is identical to the morning star, and x is identical to y. Here, the evening star is identical to the morning star, because the individual constant "e" is identical to the individual constant "m". But this is also a contingent proposition (which happens to be true), not a tautology.

In order to get a tautology, we need to consider a third case:

3) ∃x((x=e) → (x=m))
Which means: There is an x, such that if x is identical to the evening star, then x is identical to the morning star. Here, the evening star is identical to the morning star, because both of them are identical to x. This case is indeed a tautology, not a contingent proposition.

It always seemed obvious to me that it is a play on "epistemologist". I also wondered whether the "pus" bit was of any significance. — Janus

To me it sounds like Apus, the southern constellation that represents a bird of paradise. The "ti" part, I've no idea. The "melogist" part, could have something to do with "melody".

And I'll add something that may surprise : I've actually had religious experiences. Under the use of psychedelic drugs (LSD, in particular), and to a lesser degree, under the use of marijuana. They weren't Christian experiences, though (despite the fact that I went to a Catholic school for a few years when I was young).

What did I experience? It's hard to say. First of all, in keeping with the distinction between ordinary objects and extraordinary objects (which is something that I picked up from the metaphysics of ordinary objects), I'd say that these were not ordinary experiences. They were literally extra-ordinary experiences, philosophically speaking.

So what were they like? Again, it's difficult to pinpoint. They (the experiences) begin as a sort of depersonalization. You feel like you're no longer an individual, somehow you feel like you've been "fused" with the Universe, in some sense. You get up and walk towards the refrigerator, you open it to find some food, but it's like you're doing this in a very primal, or primitive, or animalistic way. It's like you're a part of Nature and you know it, your "human" part is gone, you're just an animal now. And then you feel some sort of "presence". If I had to call it something, I'd call her Gaia.

At some point, the drugs wear off, and you're back to your ordinary life, with ordinary experiences. Now you have to make sense of what you just experienced a few hours ago. The only rational, scientific conclusion here, is that the drugs simply altered my brain's chemistry. Gaia doesn't exist. I simply imagined it, because I was under the influence of psychoactive drugs.

I've never tried ayahuasca or DMT, and the reason is simple: I honestly don't think that I could come back from that trip. The reports sound far too intense, and I don't think that I have the mental strength to cope with it. I'd probably never be able to return to an ordinary life, with ordinary experiences, if I took something that potent.