He did not have a big ego. Most geniuses know they're geniuses - be dumb not to notice.

So Descartes and I both think Descartes' argument is quite different to Anselm's, whereas you think it is the same. Hmm, who do you think might understand Descartes' argument better - you, or Descartes? How can you possibly expect to understand Descartes when you are going in thinking you understand him better than he understands himself? Wrong attitude. Take a humility pill and read him. Don't read into him. Read him.

Why? It's off topic and it'd be like showing a Durer etching to my cat.
This thread is about God and free will, not the finer details of Descartes' case for God.

Read it.

See?

No, you don't understand Descartes' ontological argument, clearly, and have conflated it with Anselm's. My advice: don't label it. Just read it.

I am not an atheist. You understand me no better than you understand Descartes. I am about as theist as it is possible to be. I am more theist than most contemporary theists who seem not to have spent adequate time reflecting on the nature of omnipotence and what it takes to have it.

You are not a subtle thinker. Descartes thinks his own existence is 'necessary' in that he cannot conceive of not existing; but he does not thereby think himself incapable of dying. So you have to read that word 'necessarily' as telling us about what Descartes can conceive of, not of what is or is not metaphysically possible.

So?

No they don't. And yes it is.

What? Why would God have no nature? This is the problem with you - you don't know what's equivalent to what.

What? Focus. He - Descartes - believed God could do anything. He didn't think we could comprehend that, but he thought it was true nonetheless. No rule binds God, for they are all in his gift. It's simple. And when you read the meditations you read them as if he's describing what's true, when in fact he's describing his thought processes (which develop, of course).

You've read the fifth and sixth replies and his letter to Mersenne from 1630? And you still think I am wrong? Odd. He expresses precisely my view. But then I don't think you understand Descartes. He did think most who read him wouldn't. I agree.

God with a capital G denotes a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. So his/her question is about whether free will is something a person like that could possess.
And the answer is obvious: yes, for an omnipotent being is unconstrained and thus nothing they do will be unfree unless they choose to make it so.

There's no mystery. Discussing philosophical ideas with the confident but ignorant can be very fruitful. It's what Socrates did. Mark Twain said not to argue with a stupid person as they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience. But he was quite wrong. They will not beat you, they will just think they have (that's almost inevitable - how would they realize they've been bested?). And in the meantime one's mind has had a good workout, for an ignorant person will misunderstand just about everything. And in seeking to explain what one never thought could be misunderstood, one may chance upon things.

I don't give uncharitable interpretations of other people's arguments. Indeed, rarely does anyone here give any arguments. But whatever floats your boat.

Is the meaning of the word Jeffery 'someone who has red hair' or is it just the name of someone who happens to have red hair but would still be Jeffery if they didn't?

God is shorthand for 'a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent' such that if you have those qualities you are God. It's like Dr. If you have a PhD, you are a dr.

'Could' doesn't mean 'has'. 'Always' doesn't mean 'necessarily' and so on.

Like I say, you do not understand Descartes. In the meditations he is talking about himself and what he can conceive of, and thus he is not talking, strictly speaking, about what is absolutely possible (for that one finds oneself unable to conceive of something is not proof of its impossibility).

If you read his replies to objections, in particular his replies to the sixth set, then you'll find him expressing the view I and others attribute to him. (It's also contained in private correspondence with Mersenne).

Thanks! Do you write greetings cards?

Thus Reason would be able to do anything to anyone.
— Bartricks

Doesn’t follow. — khaled

Does.

How exactly would she go about disallowing it? The only power she has is the ability to determine the imperatives of reason. So what can she do to those who don’t listen to those such as yourself? — khaled

See previous post - she's the arbiter of truth. So, for instance, it is true that you can't follow an argument. She could make that false. She hasn't. She could.

Can’t tell with the quality of reasoning you’re displaying. — khaled

Yet I'm paid to do it.

“If you know something -> You have reason to believe it”. Sure I’ll take that, but it is NOT the same as, and doesn’t lead to: “If you decide what counts as a reason to believe -> You know something/everything”. — khaled

Does.

Reason's values constitutively determine what is morally valuable.
— Bartricks

Evidence? In this instance we can very much doubt our moral intuitions if we believe they are being dictated by someone else. Whereas we can’t doubt our logical intuitions without a logical argument, making it stupid to do so, doubting our moral intuitions producers no such contradictions. — khaled

I don't know what you're talking about. Moral norms are norms of Reason. So her attitudes - including her values - constitutively determine what's right and good. Jeez. How many times? She's all powerful. She's not going to make herself a way she doesn't value, is she? So she values herself. That makes her morally perfect.

Let’s go back to the source shall we? What your God can do, is determine the imperatives of reason. How can determining the imperatives of reason, allow God to change herself, or give herself certain virtues? — khaled

Because she determines what's true. You're not really following this are you? You're lucky i'm a very fast typist and don't mind typing it all out again and again.

I value myself. Guess I’m morally perfect? — khaled

Yeah, that definitely follows from what I've argued. Good job. A+.

And what a tedious and ungrateful response from you. I always find that those who enjoy talking about how nice they are - as you did in that previous self congratulatory tedium fest - are the most unpleasant of all. Needless to say, I read no further. Buddhist.

Bartricks
2. All of the imperatives of Reason have a unitary source
— Bartricks

False. There have historically been multiple. — khaled

Oh, okay. Good point. Well argued. Silly me.

False because it wouldn’t be able to do anything to someone who chooses to ignore it’s imperatives. Nor would it be able to lift a rock, just make the reasonable believe it was lifted. Last I checked, rocks don’t bow to the edicts of reason. — khaled

Truth is constitutively determined by Reason. So Reason determines what's true. Thus Reason would be able to do anything to anyone. Those who choose to ignore Reason's imperatives are doing so because and only because she allows it.

6. The existent mind whose imperatives constitute the imperatives of Reason will be omniscient
— Bartricks

No premise leads to this. — khaled

'It' is a premise. And the argument for it is that knowledge is determined by Reason. Why? Because for a proposition to be known is for there to be a reason to believe it. And guess who's in charge of what there's reason to believe? Yes, that's right - Reason. So Reason will be all knowing because knowledge itself is constitutively determined by her will. Like wot truth is.

7. The existent mind whose imperatives constitute the imperatives of Reason will be omnibenevolent
— Bartricks

Definitely doesn’t follow from the above. — khaled

Again, it is a premise, not a conclusion. Sheesh. Go to school already. Reason's values constitutively determine what is morally valuable. And Reason is omnipotent. So she won't be any way she doesn't want to be, or so it is reasonable to believe. And thus Reason will fully value herself. And that's what being morally perfect involves.

Unfortunately there is not an online version. Professor Sheet was very eccentric and insisted on hand writing each copy - they're written on rolls of toilet paper and are very fragile and difficult to read - and they're exorbitantly expensive. I could sell you mine if you want? It'll be $2m.

(To save money, you could just read any book or paper on possible worlds and substitute the word 'possible' with toity and necessary with hoity. And the logical symbol for toity is a chiliagon and the symbol for hoity is a testicle riding a horse into battle - takes a bit of effort to make those substitutions).

Do you need help? Does it, perhaps, mean 'possibly false'? Such that a contingent truth is a truth that is possibly true and possibly false?

And doesn't that just mean that the distinction comes down to this: there are truths that are true and possibly false, and those that are true and not possibly false? Yes? Where truths are concerned, there are those two categories - or at least, so it is thought. The true and possibly false. And the true and not possibly false. The contingent and the necessary. The toity and the hoity.

And what does non-necessary mean?

Yes, google, the great authority on all things academic.

Explain the difference between a proposition that is contingently true, and a proposition that is possibly true.

Well, this is now off topic. But I have presented the argument before and received the standard replies (that is, say, it has the fault of having premises or of actually entailing its conclusion - that kind of thing, standard fare from the internet educated). This is the argument (each premise is either self-evidently true or is implied by self-evident truths):

1. Imperatives of Reason exist
2. All of the imperatives of Reason have a unitary source
3. Existent minds and only existent minds issue existent imperatives
4. Therefore, there is a single existent mind issuing all of the existent imperatives of Reason.
5. The existent mind whose imperatives constitute the imperatives of Reason will be omnipotent
6. The existent mind whose imperatives constitute the imperatives of Reason will be omniscient
7. The existent mind whose imperatives constitute the imperatives of Reason will be omnibenevolent
8. Therefore, the single existent mind whose imperatives constitute the imperatives of Reason is God (an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent mind).

There is, I think, no reasonable way of resisting any of those premises. The weakest premise is 2, though I believe there are numerous arguments that can be provided for it, and it seems self-evidently true, as is reflected in the fact that we do talk of 'Reason' and mean by it the source of all reasons to do and believe things.

The argument is valid, but it does not have to be. It just is. And the god - God - that it demonstrates to exist, is a person who can do anything precisely because the edicts of Reason are theirs to make or unmake as they choose. And so that being is not in any way bound by them. They express her, but do not constrain her. And as it is only by appeal to Reason that anyone could ever show that there are necessary truths - for the evidence that there are some is that Reason appears to say there are - there are, in fact, none, for anything Reason says she can not say too.

God exists? Not by any standard of existence, thus not true. — tim wood

Why did you throw that in? God does exist. Indeed, it is by reflecting on the fact God exists that one can come to the conclusion that there are no necessary truths (whatever one of those may be). For if God exists, then all things are possible, given that God can do anything.

So, if God exists, then there are just truths. And God does exist, as the canons of reason would not exist otherwise, and their existence is beyond a reasonable doubt.

What exposing the hoity emptiness of necessity does, is it undermines a certain sort of ontological argument for God. But a) those arguments were not for God anyway, but for a hobbled creature who is unable not to exist and b) few thought there was anything in such arguments anyway.

It is commonplace - at least among those who talk of possible worlds - to think that if a proposition is true in all possible worlds, then it is a necessary truth. That is, that being true in all possible worlds is what being necessarily true is, not simply a feature of necessary truths that could be shared with contingent ones.

Contingent is defined as possible but non-necessary. — bongo fury

A contingent truth is the opposite of a necessary truth. Saying 'possible but non-necessary' is like saying 'possible but possible'.

Possible worlds that include contradictions are called impossible worlds. — Banno

Question begging. Nothing is impossible.
Anyway, call them what you like - I have no idea what a possible world is anyway - my point is that it is not necessarily true that there are no true contradictions, it is just true. Around and around we go.

Top marks for total inconsistency.

If Bartricks says it, it's false.

But elsewhere, Banno may say it and there it is true.

Are you being thick, or do you not care about consistency?

There's a possible world in which a contradiction is true. Doesn't mean any are true in the actual world, does it?

Two reasons. First, God is omnipotent and so does not 'have' to exist. Ontological arguments of that kind appeal to necessity, and thus seek to show that God exists by showing that he is forced to exist by a strange force of necessity. But nothing forces an omnipotent being to exist - anyone who thinks otherwise is just confused.
Second, if something possibly exists, then it does not have to exist. I mean, that's what one is expressing by saying that it possibly exists. And so go from 'possibly exists' to 'must exist' seems obviously fallacious.

Here's an ontological argument for moral realism. If it is possible for Xing to be wrong, it is wrong. For if it is possible for it to be wrong, then there is a possible world in which it is wrong. But it is a necessary truth that if two situations are identical non-morally, then they are identical morally as well (this is known as the supervenience thesis). Thus, if it is possible for an action to be wrong, it 'is' wrong. Somehow the mere possibility of an act being wrong, makes it actually wrong.

Now I take it that this argument is not persuasive. It is possible that morality not exist. Moral realism is true: some acts are wrong. But morality does not 'have' to exist, it just does. Moral nihilism is not incoherent. False, yes. Necessarily false, no.

Note, the recognition that virtually all of us have that there is something dodgy about ontological arguments for God - or indeed, morality - is just a dim recognition that it is fallacious to go from 'possibly' to 'actually' (I don't say 'all' ontological arguments are like this - Descartes' Cogito is an ontological argument and it is fine - but most are).

2. Possible 2: It's possible that God exists. God has to exist in one possible world. Hey!, we've just proved that God exists. — TheMadFool

Yes, that's an argument that Dummo would - or should, if he had a clue - be impressed by. Whereas I think it's stupid.

What's a possible world?

May I talk with the same right about toity worlds? Have you read Toity Worlds by Professor Boule Sheet?

There's a toity world in which there is a centaur. And there's a toity world in which there is a true contradiction. Might that centaur come and get me from the toity world in which it is living? Should I be afraid? Will it bring the true contradiction with it?

It still threatens the health of the vaccinated, and increases the likelihood of variants. — Xtrix

What are the odds of you dying from covid if you are vaccinated? (They're miniscule)

The reason for the lockdowns is nothing to do with protecting the vaccinated. It is to stop hospitals from being overwhelmed. Which is not a good reason to make people get vaccinated, for the reasons I explained.

But that does not show it. That is just you asserting it.

Look, this argument is not valid:

1. If a proposition is true, then it is contingently true
Conclusion: Therefore, necessarily if a proposition is true, then it is contingently true

Put some squiggles and squoggles in if it helps. I'm sure there's a squoggle for necessity, and it'll be turning up in the conclusion, but it won't be in the premise.

Indeed, without being able to squiggle and squoggle, it seems plain that the reverse follows. For if 1 is true, then 1 itself is contingently true, not necessarily true.

Here:

1. If a proposition is true, then it is contingently true
2. Premise 1 is a true proposition
3. Therefore, premise 1 is contingently true.

So how do you get to the conclusion that it is not possible for a proposition to be anything other than contingent? That is, how do you get to 'necessarily, all true propositions are contingently true' from a premise that makes no mention of necessity? It's still looking for all the world like you're the thick one. Odd.

But as I already said, I do not see why this:

it is not possible that a proposition not be contingent. — Banno

follows from this:

If it is true, then every proposition is a contingent proposition. — Banno

You are just saying again the very thing I want explained, yes?

I deny that there are any necessary truths. So I deny that it is necessarily true that there are no true contradictions.

Thus, I hold that all actually true propositions are true contingently. By which I mean, of course, simply that they are not necessarily true.

Now, how does it follow from that, that it is not possible for a proposition to be anything other than just plain true?

Again, I hold that as there are no centaurs, no proposition that asserts their existence is true.
Does it follow from that that I am committed to the view that necessarily no such proposition is true? No. So why do you think it does follow when it is true contradictions that we are talking about?

Explain. Explain without assuming any necessary truths. Come on. (Time to throw your arms up in exasperation, yes? I'm thick, yes?)

What? My view is that every actual contradiction is false. Is that inconvenient to you?

Dummo logic says that there are necessarily no centaurs if there are actually no centaurs - yes? Or no?

If no, then why does Dummo think that if there are actually no true contradictions it is necessarily the case that there aren't?

Please locate for me my thickness and bring it into the light. It is the only way I will learn. FOr at the moment I am quite convinced you're the thick one, yet surely you are not for you can squiggle and squoggle (not that i could tell if you were squiggline and squoggling properly, of course, for I do not speak squiggle-squoggle).

No, how does it follow from every actual proposition not being necessary that that proposition is necessarily true? Dummo. Show it. Show it without assuming some necessary truths. Come along - show me how thick I am.

There are no centaurs. Thus, every actual proposition that asserts there to be some is false. By Dummo logic that presumably means it is necessarily the case that there are no centaurs. Sounds a bit thick to me!

Hence, it is not possible that a proposition not be contingent. — Banno

How does that follow? Pray tell, Dummo. All things are possible, dummo, remember?