The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Veritas Aequitas
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Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 11:56 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:47 am
Justintruth wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:58 am

I think you are missing the point of my objection. The proof turns on being able to determine that it is greater to exist than to not exist. True? For if it is not greater to exist than not to exist, then that being greater than which none can be conceived may not exist. In fact, if it is greater to not exist than to exist then that being greater than which none can be conceived would not exist necessarily.

So which is true: It is greater to exist or it is greater to not exist?
I don't see how your 'greater to not exist' is applicable to St. Anselm's argument.
Because if it is greater not to exist then his proof functions as a proof that god does not exist because else, were he (god) to exist, he would not be as great as a the same god not existing, and since god is that greater than which nothing can be conceived, the existing "god" would not be "god", by definition in virtue of his existing, because you could conceive of a greater namely the god that does not exist .
It is implied St. Anselm's definition refer to an existing God and it is real to the extent of having created the universe and has the ability to listen to and answers prayers. It would be absurd for a theists to define his God as otherwise than the above.

Also it is not possible for a greater God that does not exist.
When God is defined [by St. Anselm] as
"a being than which no greater can be conceived".

it implies God exists [Being] as the greatest and the added clause is, there is no other that can be greater than the greatest existing God.
The definition of an entity does not normally imply its existence. In the case of god that might be an exception. But that exception needs to be established by the proof. So defining god as a being greater than which no greater can be conceived does not "imply God exists" unless existing is a priori greater than not existing for god.
Yes a definition of God by default is that it is an existing God.
The point is whatever the opposition claim their God to be, St. Anselm's existing God [Being] is always greater than that of whatever the opposition's claims of God.
In addition this ontological God is attributable with all the positive omni-whatever- qualities.

In this case, all "intelligent" theists will eventually end up with the claim of the ontological God so that no other theists will have a one-up position on the other.

If "greater to not exist" is claim, then there is a difficulty of proving a negative do not exist.
The logic functions the same whether there is a claim that it is greater to exist or there is a claim that it is greater not to exist. There are issues with the relationship between logic and existential quantifiers. They operate in strange ways in the proof. Some would argue that these types of proofs are an abuse of logic. But even if they are not, there seems to be an assumption in this proof that existing is greater than non existing. Else that greater than cannot be conceived would be not existing by definition.
You are not interpreting the meaning of the definition as I do, thus I have to re-quote them.

Yes, St. Anselm's definition is driven by evolution, i.e. the instinctual 'one-up' impulse.
This 'one-up' impulse in hardwired in humans to facilitate survival of the species.
This instinct is very common and very explicit in kindergarten and grade-school playgrounds, where most children are driven with the 'one-up' impulse.
The 'one-up' impulse is not so obvious in adults but the instinctive is still very active in many, such as in sports, business, competitions, exploration, research, ego-maniacs and in this case, theology.

In the case of theology, the one-up instinct has driven theists to the ontological God so that no other theists can have a one-up God over theirs.
However this one-up madness has driven them to an illusory God that is impossible to be real.
Evolution cannot be reduced to the 'one-up' instinct. Your description of that instinct is fair, however, and maybe it is even fair to say that it plays in motivating theologians. But that does not excuse us from trying to understand whether, what those theologians produce, regardless of whether they have produced it based on a motivation to "one up" each other, has a basis for a claim that it is valid.

Mathematicians also try to one up each other sometimes one presumes. But their output will be true or false independent off the motivations that they have.

I did not say evolution is reduced to the 'one-up' instinct, rather it is an emergence out of the evolutionary process.

If you study the conception of God and its definition, you will note there is a progressive trend in the definition of God.
In the early primitive days, god was recognized mainly to natural entities, such as trees, mountains, seas, etc. Then it progress on a one-up basis with a attribute of being, e.g. the bearded man in the sky.
When theists encounter competition from other theists [or opposition from atheists] then they upped their definition of God to the physio-theological God, the cosmological then to the ontological.
Which brings us to your claim "illusory God that is impossible to be real". Clearly, you think the output is not valid. Why do you think that? Perhaps just better to say why you think it is impossible for that greater than which nothing can be conceived to exist?
The ontological God is by default a God of absolute-perfection [Descartes] or absolutely-absolute [St. Anselm].

Note my argument in that thread;
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704#p367812
  • P1. Absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real
    P2. God, imperatively must be absolutely perfect
    C. Therefore God is an impossibility to be real.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:48 pm Ok, so clearly, you have an opposition between what is "real" and and what is "merely thought". This is a very common misunderstanding. Let me try to resolve it by showing you why you have it.

Let me direct your attention first to nature. By nature I mean what is. Consider the fact that it admits, approximately, a description that specifies that there is a three dimensional space within which are regions occupied by things. That it admits this description is due to the fact of how we find it. As an example consider the socks that I put into my drawer and retrieved to wear this morning. Many facts exist like that. There are certain temporal symmetries in reality that allow us to interpret it this way. Further we have an ontological faculty that allows us to designate the objective regions as being occupied by something and the rest as being nothing. Even further we find that there are certain bodies within the space that think. Their thinking is "intentional" in the philosophical sense in the same way that a picture of a house is intentional. It is about something. But it is not one of the things that that thinking is about. Reflection of that kind, some would say, unless it is focused on the brain, is in fact an illusion (see Dennet). That way of thinking is false

That way of thinking underlies our ability to manipulate the world. When combined with our desire to exist these two products of ontology confer a survival advantage. I say so as a presumption as it is possible that it is just piggybacking on the material.

Sartre has a great description of how these objects are the result of the introduction of nothingness into the plenum of being. Part of that introduction is the nihillation of the experiencing. A thing is "in iteself", it is "real", it is not "just an experiencing" but rather is '"really there" (you can here the spacial connection in that "there") and that which is experiencing is precisely nothing as it is not one of those things there. He further goes on to describe the pre-reflective cogito which he claims is not just possible but necessary as a condition for experiencing (you can hear Kant in that idea of justifying based on what is necessary). Further, the natural causality inherent in our incarnate state, that experiencing is caused by physical objects that constitute our brains, has caused some to reject the reality of that which is "non-physical". Witness Jackson's recant of his argument about color blind Mary.

We see this in our ordinary language also. If I say "that is just him seeing things" I mean that what he is seeing is not real - rather it is just an illusion of the thing that the brain creates. And we all "know" that an "illusion" is "not real".

This way of thinking is technically incorrect. The "seeing" is as real as anything else and is, in fact, contingent. It is just not "something". But there is no rule that "being something" is required to "be".

In fact, there are modes of understanding in which the see-er seeing the seen break down and seeing seeing seeing occur. This mode is accessible to humans as a result of the natural causality of our brains and understanding its implication is necessary if you want to parse what the "smart" theologians are taking about. And it will be necessary as science investigates cognitive endocrinology and its correlated phenomenology.

When you consider God you are not considering a creature for which one could possibly offer evidence either for or against its existing. The very nature of evidence itself would presuppose the field upon which notions of what it means are constructed and within those meanings one would use the only language we have and use the term God as a noun. Now that is a very big problem doing that. I have had some success in manipulating adverbs. In a sense, God is a kind of "adverb" of "evidencing". "God evidencing" is a kind of experiencing that forms the phenomenal basis of the notions underlying the ontological proof and definition of God as that greater than which nothing can be conceived. But it does that because of the connection with ecstasy. Without that connection, it falls apart. That connection may be accidental and provided by the biology to create a survival advantage by causing the organism to want to live.

Anyone who believes, that the set of possible universes contains a subset characterized as those possible universes in which there is a god, and having a complement namely those possible universes in which there is not a god, and then demand evidence on which to base a claim that the universe that we live in is in one of those sets - one way or another - simply has no hope of ever understanding the problem. They are participating in a category error.

The key to the problem is necessity. Kant understood its role in the a priori. If god exists, then the claim is apriori to all evidence. Not sure he understood that. Remember, he was living in a time prior to the invention of modern physics. The classical viewpoint, totally consistent with the notion that there is a three dimensional space in which there are beings, and that what being in fact means, is roughly presence in that universe, had not yet been scientifically dis-proven. So his notion of ontology was flawed.

Unless you can get some experience beyond the subject object distinction, I don't think you can gain access to the meaning of Anselm's, or Aquinas, or Aristotle, or even Husserl, Heidegger or Sartre or any other of the not normal tail of the bell curve people. Not claiming to be one myself. I am above average slightly but definitely near the average, at top of the bell.
I can not get your point precisely from the above.

Let's start from the beginning;
Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:48 pmOk, so clearly, you have an opposition between
  • what is "real" and and
    what is "merely thought".
This is a very common misunderstanding.
Let me try to resolve it by showing you why you have it.
To me what is "real" should be objective, can justified empirically [Science] and philosophically [critical thinking]. What is real can be thought. For example, that apple in the table in front of you can be justified empirically and philosophically, is objective and can be thought of [imagined] as a image in your mind.

What is "merely thought" i.e. a non-empirical thought that cannot be justified empirically but can be scrutinized philosophically.
For example, one can think of a square-circle, married-bachelor which can only be an idea but it is impossible to be empirical and real, thus cannot be justified empirically. Nevertheless it can be scrutinized philosophically as a contradiction or oxymoron.

Just like a square-circle, the Ontological God is "merely thought" i.e. an idea that cannot be justified empirically thus cannot be real empirically and philosophically.

However if God is imputed with empirical elements, e.g. a bearded man in the sky, i.e. the bolded variables are empirical, then it is possible for a God as a bearded man in the sky to exist empirically as real.
Therefore if anyone can bring the relevant empirical evidence, then it can be empirically and philosophically verified whether it is real or not?
This is why a Scientist like Richard Dawkins who is empirically bonded by Science would not dare to dismiss the impossibility of God but rather assign it a 1/7 possibility God could exist empirically.

But as I had argued, the one-up instinct will always drive theists to the ceiling ontological-God since no theist would one to settle for a one-down inferior to another god.

As such the idea of God has to end up with an ultimate ontological God which as I had argued it impossible to be real.

I am familiar [not expert] with Anselm's, or Aquinas, or Aristotle, or even Husserl, Heidegger or Sartre. I would say they by their inherent human nature would have driven themselves to deal with an ontological God [Being].
I would consider myself a reasonable expert on Kant's philosophy, but even Kant [a Deist] who was aware of the limit of the ontological God somehow was caught within the whirlpool of the idea of God.

You may think you are somewhere above average but that may be insufficient to escape from the forces that draws you to an illusory ontological God.
As Kant declared;
  • They are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
    Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusion].
    After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
    B397
The only way to swim out of the whirlpool is to dive deep into the whirlpool and veer off from therein towards psychology, i.e. existential psychology.
Justintruth
Posts: 187
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2016 4:10 pm

Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Justintruth »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 9:31 am
Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 11:56 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:47 am

I don't see how your 'greater to not exist' is applicable to St. Anselm's argument.
Because if it is greater not to exist then his proof functions as a proof that god does not exist because else, were he (god) to exist, he would not be as great as a the same god not existing, and since god is that greater than which nothing can be conceived, the existing "god" would not be "god", by definition in virtue of his existing, because you could conceive of a greater namely the god that does not exist .
It is implied St. Anselm's definition refer to an existing God and it is real to the extent of having created the universe and has the ability to listen to and answers prayers. It would be absurd for a theists to define his God as otherwise than the above.

Also it is not possible for a greater God that does not exist.
When God is defined [by St. Anselm] as
"a being than which no greater can be conceived".

it implies God exists [Being] as the greatest and the added clause is, there is no other that can be greater than the greatest existing God.
The definition of an entity does not normally imply its existence. In the case of god that might be an exception. But that exception needs to be established by the proof. So defining god as a being greater than which no greater can be conceived does not "imply God exists" unless existing is a priori greater than not existing for god.
Yes a definition of God by default is that it is an existing God.
The point is whatever the opposition claim their God to be, St. Anselm's existing God [Being] is always greater than that of whatever the opposition's claims of God.
In addition this ontological God is attributable with all the positive omni-whatever- qualities.

In this case, all "intelligent" theists will eventually end up with the claim of the ontological God so that no other theists will have a one-up position on the other.

If "greater to not exist" is claim, then there is a difficulty of proving a negative do not exist.
The logic functions the same whether there is a claim that it is greater to exist or there is a claim that it is greater not to exist. There are issues with the relationship between logic and existential quantifiers. They operate in strange ways in the proof. Some would argue that these types of proofs are an abuse of logic. But even if they are not, there seems to be an assumption in this proof that existing is greater than non existing. Else that greater than cannot be conceived would be not existing by definition.
You are not interpreting the meaning of the definition as I do, thus I have to re-quote them.

Yes, St. Anselm's definition is driven by evolution, i.e. the instinctual 'one-up' impulse.
This 'one-up' impulse in hardwired in humans to facilitate survival of the species.
This instinct is very common and very explicit in kindergarten and grade-school playgrounds, where most children are driven with the 'one-up' impulse.
The 'one-up' impulse is not so obvious in adults but the instinctive is still very active in many, such as in sports, business, competitions, exploration, research, ego-maniacs and in this case, theology.

In the case of theology, the one-up instinct has driven theists to the ontological God so that no other theists can have a one-up God over theirs.
However this one-up madness has driven them to an illusory God that is impossible to be real.
Evolution cannot be reduced to the 'one-up' instinct. Your description of that instinct is fair, however, and maybe it is even fair to say that it plays in motivating theologians. But that does not excuse us from trying to understand whether, what those theologians produce, regardless of whether they have produced it based on a motivation to "one up" each other, has a basis for a claim that it is valid.

Mathematicians also try to one up each other sometimes one presumes. But their output will be true or false independent off the motivations that they have.

I did not say evolution is reduced to the 'one-up' instinct, rather it is an emergence out of the evolutionary process.

If you study the conception of God and its definition, you will note there is a progressive trend in the definition of God.
In the early primitive days, god was recognized mainly to natural entities, such as trees, mountains, seas, etc. Then it progress on a one-up basis with a attribute of being, e.g. the bearded man in the sky.
When theists encounter competition from other theists [or opposition from atheists] then they upped their definition of God to the physio-theological God, the cosmological then to the ontological.
Which brings us to your claim "illusory God that is impossible to be real". Clearly, you think the output is not valid. Why do you think that? Perhaps just better to say why you think it is impossible for that greater than which nothing can be conceived to exist?
The ontological God is by default a God of absolute-perfection [Descartes] or absolutely-absolute [St. Anselm].

Note my argument in that thread;
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704#p367812
  • P1. Absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real
    P2. God, imperatively must be absolutely perfect
    C. Therefore God is an impossibility to be real.
Ok I responded in that thread to your argument.
Justintruth
Posts: 187
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2016 4:10 pm

Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Justintruth »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 10:21 am
Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:48 pm Ok, so clearly, you have an opposition between what is "real" and and what is "merely thought". This is a very common misunderstanding. Let me try to resolve it by showing you why you have it.

Let me direct your attention first to nature. By nature I mean what is. Consider the fact that it admits, approximately, a description that specifies that there is a three dimensional space within which are regions occupied by things. That it admits this description is due to the fact of how we find it. As an example consider the socks that I put into my drawer and retrieved to wear this morning. Many facts exist like that. There are certain temporal symmetries in reality that allow us to interpret it this way. Further we have an ontological faculty that allows us to designate the objective regions as being occupied by something and the rest as being nothing. Even further we find that there are certain bodies within the space that think. Their thinking is "intentional" in the philosophical sense in the same way that a picture of a house is intentional. It is about something. But it is not one of the things that that thinking is about. Reflection of that kind, some would say, unless it is focused on the brain, is in fact an illusion (see Dennet). That way of thinking is false

That way of thinking underlies our ability to manipulate the world. When combined with our desire to exist these two products of ontology confer a survival advantage. I say so as a presumption as it is possible that it is just piggybacking on the material.

Sartre has a great description of how these objects are the result of the introduction of nothingness into the plenum of being. Part of that introduction is the nihillation of the experiencing. A thing is "in iteself", it is "real", it is not "just an experiencing" but rather is '"really there" (you can here the spacial connection in that "there") and that which is experiencing is precisely nothing as it is not one of those things there. He further goes on to describe the pre-reflective cogito which he claims is not just possible but necessary as a condition for experiencing (you can hear Kant in that idea of justifying based on what is necessary). Further, the natural causality inherent in our incarnate state, that experiencing is caused by physical objects that constitute our brains, has caused some to reject the reality of that which is "non-physical". Witness Jackson's recant of his argument about color blind Mary.

We see this in our ordinary language also. If I say "that is just him seeing things" I mean that what he is seeing is not real - rather it is just an illusion of the thing that the brain creates. And we all "know" that an "illusion" is "not real".

This way of thinking is technically incorrect. The "seeing" is as real as anything else and is, in fact, contingent. It is just not "something". But there is no rule that "being something" is required to "be".

In fact, there are modes of understanding in which the see-er seeing the seen break down and seeing seeing seeing occur. This mode is accessible to humans as a result of the natural causality of our brains and understanding its implication is necessary if you want to parse what the "smart" theologians are taking about. And it will be necessary as science investigates cognitive endocrinology and its correlated phenomenology.

When you consider God you are not considering a creature for which one could possibly offer evidence either for or against its existing. The very nature of evidence itself would presuppose the field upon which notions of what it means are constructed and within those meanings one would use the only language we have and use the term God as a noun. Now that is a very big problem doing that. I have had some success in manipulating adverbs. In a sense, God is a kind of "adverb" of "evidencing". "God evidencing" is a kind of experiencing that forms the phenomenal basis of the notions underlying the ontological proof and definition of God as that greater than which nothing can be conceived. But it does that because of the connection with ecstasy. Without that connection, it falls apart. That connection may be accidental and provided by the biology to create a survival advantage by causing the organism to want to live.

Anyone who believes, that the set of possible universes contains a subset characterized as those possible universes in which there is a god, and having a complement namely those possible universes in which there is not a god, and then demand evidence on which to base a claim that the universe that we live in is in one of those sets - one way or another - simply has no hope of ever understanding the problem. They are participating in a category error.

The key to the problem is necessity. Kant understood its role in the a priori. If god exists, then the claim is apriori to all evidence. Not sure he understood that. Remember, he was living in a time prior to the invention of modern physics. The classical viewpoint, totally consistent with the notion that there is a three dimensional space in which there are beings, and that what being in fact means, is roughly presence in that universe, had not yet been scientifically dis-proven. So his notion of ontology was flawed.

Unless you can get some experience beyond the subject object distinction, I don't think you can gain access to the meaning of Anselm's, or Aquinas, or Aristotle, or even Husserl, Heidegger or Sartre or any other of the not normal tail of the bell curve people. Not claiming to be one myself. I am above average slightly but definitely near the average, at top of the bell.
I can not get your point precisely from the above.

Let's start from the beginning;
Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:48 pmOk, so clearly, you have an opposition between
  • what is "real" and and
    what is "merely thought".
This is a very common misunderstanding.
Let me try to resolve it by showing you why you have it.
To me what is "real" should be objective,
Why? Non-objective sensory experiencing exists. Even in a contingent sense. Also, it looks like much of physics is no longer based on objects - certainly not objects in the usual sense. What you are saying goes against quantum mechanics and the relativity of time, right? But even if it didn't, even if physics was a purely objective science and the reality of nature was that it was made of objects that would not exclude reality from that which is not physical.

....can justified empirically [Science] and philosophically [critical thinking].
Why do you think that something has to be justified empirically to be real? Or perhaps I do not know what you mean by empirically? Einstein used the words sensory sometimes. Do you mean by empirically that which can be experienced via sensations - like seeing? Surely real experiencing occurs that is not sensory.

What is real can be thought. For example, that apple in the table in front of you can be justified empirically and philosophically, is objective and can be thought of [imagined] as a image in your mind.
Yes, but that is a false analogy. We are not talking about apples. All that you can conclude is that god is not like an apple.

What is "merely thought" i.e. a non-empirical thought that cannot be justified empirically but can be scrutinized philosophically.

For example, one can think of a square-circle,
Actually that is a contradiction.

married-bachelor which can only be an idea but it is impossible to be empirical and real,
A contradiction cannot be real. Again a false analogy. You only have that god cannot be a contradiction.

thus cannot be justified empirically. Nevertheless it can be scrutinized philosophically as a contradiction or oxymoron.

Just like a square-circle, the Ontological God is "merely thought" i.e. an idea that cannot be justified empirically thus cannot be real empirically and philosophically.


A round circle cannot be justified empirically. Do you think that a circle is not real? Do you think that thinking experiencing is not real? How about other forms of experiencing? Color experiencing cannot be verified empirically either, there is only the signal characteristics. Do you think color is empirical? Yet it is real.
However if God is imputed with empirical elements, e.g. a bearded man in the sky, i.e. the bolded variables are empirical, then it is possible for a God as a bearded man in the sky to exist empirically as real.
It is true that such an entity, bearded man etc, could be. But if it was it would be just like any other creature. The problem would be to say that that empirical entity was any more god than any other entity that exists empirically. People that do that kind of think are fundamentalists. Fundamentalism itself is not religious. It is just terrible science.

Therefore if anyone can bring the relevant empirical evidence, then it can be empirically and philosophically verified whether it is real or not?
This is why a Scientist like Richard Dawkins who is empirically bonded by Science would not dare to dismiss the impossibility of God but rather assign it a 1/7 possibility God could exist empirically.
Dawkins? He either does not know what religion is about or he is playing to the crowd insincerely. That whole science vrs religion think is a big circus tent. Not worth getting into.

But as I had argued, the one-up instinct will always drive theists to the ceiling ontological-God since no theist would one to settle for a one-down inferior to another god.

As such the idea of God has to end up with an ultimate ontological God which as I had argued it impossible to be real.

I am familiar [not expert] with Anselm's, or Aquinas, or Aristotle, or even Husserl, Heidegger or Sartre. I would say they by their inherent human nature would have driven themselves to deal with an ontological God [Being].
I would consider myself a reasonable expert on Kant's philosophy, but even Kant [a Deist] who was aware of the limit of the ontological God somehow was caught within the whirlpool of the idea of God.

You may think you are somewhere above average but that may be insufficient to escape from the forces that draws you to an illusory ontological God.
You say two things frequently without justification "can't be real" and "illusory". Need to look at the basis for those claims more carefully. They are not in your posts. You do have good arguments against god being empirical or being a contradiction.
Not more.

As Kant declared;
  • They are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
    Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusion].
    After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
    B397
The only way to swim out of the whirlpool is to dive deep into the whirlpool and veer off from therein towards psychology, i.e. existential psychology.
I don't think psychology will work. We need it for sure but it cannot deal with issues like truth for example. You should check out someone who came after Kant and perhaps something like Einstein's relativity of time or Bell's theorem. Try Husserl first I think. He was trying to give psychology and mathematics a kind of foundation.
Veritas Aequitas
Posts: 12357
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:41 am

Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Justintruth wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 12:11 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 10:21 am I can not get your point precisely from the above.

Let's start from the beginning;
Justintruth wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:48 pmOk, so clearly, you have an opposition between
  • what is "real" and and
    what is "merely thought".
This is a very common misunderstanding.
Let me try to resolve it by showing you why you have it.
To me what is "real" should be objective,
Why? Non-objective sensory experiencing exists. Even in a contingent sense. Also, it looks like much of physics is no longer based on objects - certainly not objects in the usual sense. What you are saying goes against quantum mechanics and the relativity of time, right? But even if it didn't, even if physics was a purely objective science and the reality of nature was that it was made of objects that would not exclude reality from that which is
not physical.

....can justified empirically [Science] and philosophically [critical thinking].
Why do you think that something has to be justified empirically to be real? Or perhaps I do not know what you mean by empirically? Einstein used the words sensory sometimes. Do you mean by empirically that which can be experienced via sensations - like seeing? Surely real experiencing occurs that is not sensory.
The general paradigm of realness is it has to be justified empirically [Scientific] and philosophically [critical thinking and wisdom].
Note, to avoid tedious repetition, when I stated 'empirically' by default it include philosophically [critical thinking and wisdom] as well.
Empirically = justified by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_evidence

The process of experiencing can be justified to be real empirically, but what is experienced and manifested as thought may not be real empirically. Example a schizophrenic insisting the gnomes he talked with is really real and other similar examples of hallucinations, misceptions, illusions, etc.
What is real can be thought. For example, that apple in the table in front of you can be justified empirically and philosophically, is objective and can be thought of [imagined] as a image in your mind.
Yes, but that is a false analogy. We are not talking about apples. All that you can conclude is that god is not like an apple.
Note I have proven in the other thread, it is impossible for God cannot be justified empirically and philosophically.
What is "merely thought" i.e. a non-empirical thought that cannot be justified empirically but can be scrutinized philosophically.
For example, one can think of a square-circle,
Actually that is a contradiction.
That is my point, God [as proven in the other thread] is something like a square-circle, i.e. can be thought of but cannot be empirically real.
married-bachelor which can only be an idea but it is impossible to be empirical and real,
A contradiction cannot be real. Again a false analogy. You only have that god cannot be a contradiction.
That God is real is a contradiction or oxymoron, i.e.
God is a transcendental illusion, thus cannot be empirically real.
thus cannot be justified empirically. Nevertheless it can be scrutinized philosophically as a contradiction or oxymoron.
Just like a square-circle, the Ontological God is "merely thought" i.e. an idea that cannot be justified empirically thus cannot be real empirically and philosophically.


A round circle cannot be justified empirically. Do you think that a circle is not real? Do you think that thinking experiencing is not real? How about other forms of experiencing? Color experiencing cannot be verified empirically either, there is only the signal characteristics. Do you think color is empirical? Yet it is real.
As stated above, the process of experiencing is real, but what [thing] is manifested in consciousness may not be real if such a thing cannot be justified empirically.
Colors vary upon conditions of reflection but colors can be justified empirically via their wavelengths.
However if God is imputed with empirical elements, e.g. a bearded man in the sky, i.e. the bolded variables are empirical, then it is possible for a God as a bearded man in the sky to exist empirically as real.
It is true that such an entity, bearded man etc, could be. But if it was it would be just like any other creature. The problem would be to say that that empirical entity was any more god than any other entity that exists empirically. People that do that kind of think are fundamentalists. Fundamentalism itself is not religious. It is just terrible science.
That is the point, if one claimed his God to have an empirical base, then it can easily be pointed out as a false thing.
To avoid the above, theologians driven by the one-up instinct came up with the Ontological God to escape the trappings of an empirically-based God.
But then, an Ontological God cannot be real, i.e. because it cannot be justified empirically and philosophically.
Thus ultimately there is no real God but merely a thought-only-God.
Therefore if anyone can bring the relevant empirical evidence, then it can be empirically and philosophically verified whether it is real or not?
This is why a Scientist like Richard Dawkins who is empirically bonded by Science would not dare to dismiss the impossibility of God but rather assign it a 1/7 possibility God could exist empirically.
Dawkins? He either does not know what religion is about or he is playing to the crowd insincerely. That whole science vrs religion think is a big circus tent. Not worth getting into.
Dawkins argument is still valid for those who insist their God is empirically real to the extent God exist as an empirical entity who listen to prayers and answer them.
Dawkins' challenge in this case is, bring the empirical evidence which to him is not likely at all.
But as I had argued, the one-up instinct will always drive theists to the ceiling ontological-God since no theist would one to settle for a one-down inferior to another god.

As such the idea of God has to end up with an ultimate ontological God which as I had argued it impossible to be real.

I am familiar [not expert] with Anselm's, or Aquinas, or Aristotle, or even Husserl, Heidegger or Sartre. I would say they by their inherent human nature would have driven themselves to deal with an ontological God [Being].
I would consider myself a reasonable expert on Kant's philosophy, but even Kant [a Deist] who was aware of the limit of the ontological God somehow was caught within the whirlpool of the idea of God.

You may think you are somewhere above average but that may be insufficient to escape from the forces that draws you to an illusory ontological God.
You say two things frequently without justification "can't be real" and "illusory". Need to look at the basis for those claims more carefully. They are not in your posts. You do have good arguments against god being empirical or being a contradiction.
Not more.
Note this argument;
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=27609
  • P1. All transcendental ideas are transcendental illusions.
    P2. The idea of God is a transcendental idea
    C3. God is a transcendental illusion.
The above are merely the syllogism and one has to get the justification of each premise above.
As Kant declared;
  • They are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
    Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusion].
    After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
    B397
The only way to swim out of the whirlpool is to dive deep into the whirlpool and veer off from therein towards psychology, i.e. existential psychology.
I don't think psychology will work. We need it for sure but it cannot deal with issues like truth for example. You should check out someone who came after Kant and perhaps something like Einstein's relativity of time or Bell's theorem. Try Husserl first I think. He was trying to give psychology and mathematics a kind of foundation.
There are many who critique Kant, e.g. Hegel, Schelling, Fichte and the Neo-Kantians, https://www.iep.utm.edu/neo-kant/
Schopenhauer, Mach, Husserl, Foucault, Strawson, Kuhn, Sellers, Nancy, Korsgaard, and Friedman could loosely be considered Neo-Kantian.
Schoppenhauer was a very strong critique of Kant. Heidegger is another. Husserl - not so much. I have read most of the serious critiques of Kant and they are not able to counter Kant's fundamental theory, i.e. the thing-in-itself is an illusion, thus not real.
Even Kant himself was subliminally trapped by the transcendental illusion he propounded!

Psychology is about what is going inside the brain and mind of a human being.
Therefore one can understand the whole shebang re God by applying Socrates' 'Know Thyself'.
If and when you are thinking about or perceiving God, be mindful of what is going on inside your own brain and mind.
Do you know exactly what is going within the 100 billion neurons in your brain and mind?
There is definitely an opportunity for one to raise a feasible hypothesis on this, i.e.
  • What is going on inside my brain and that of the theists when the idea of God manifest within one's consciousness?


Obviously the above thesis question is very complex and wide ranging.

There are many starting points one can begin with.

Here is one starting point on what is happening when one experienced God.

In the following video, the guy claimed he experienced God as real.
His rational parents took him to a psychiatrist and it was discovered he suffered from temporal epilepsy.
When such patients are treated medically their God experiences disappear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg

Many kind of mental patients claimed to have experiences of God in some altered states of consciousness.
Those who took drugs, hallucinogens, e.g. DMT also experience a real God momentarily or regularly.
Those with brain damage also experienced God-liked experiences in some ways.

Therefore the above do give us a clue [that warrant more research] that the idea of God could be due to neural activities rather than there is a real [empirically and philosophically] God. This clue is very tenable given no one has been able to prove the existence of God as real objectively, empirically & philosophically.

If you are philosophical and rational, you must consider the above alternatives and many other alternative views on the emergence of the idea of God to a person's consciousness.

Note my point here where theism has something to do with the subliminal subconscious fear of death, not the conscious fear of death.
viewtopic.php?p=430195#p430195
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

P1. No further knowledge is possible once humans know everything.
P1. Humans do not currently know everything.
P3. Humans cannot know what they don't know.
C. Therefore humans can't currently know what is or is not ultimate knowledge.
C. Therefore any amount of knowledge is possible.
C. Therefore a creator of humans is possible.
C. Therefore string theory is possible.
C. Therefore a multiverse is possible.
C. Therefore a Big Bang is possible.
C, etc,etc,etc!

Which has nothing to do with probabilities which are based upon what humans currently know.
Humans place more credibility on probabilities, based upon things they know, rather than possibilities, because they can't know what they don't know, which is why Science is revisionist in nature.

Many forget this fact, thus insist that what we currently know as ultimate knowledge. But then what do you expect from non scientists?
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

SpheresOfBalance wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:31 am P1. No further knowledge is possible once humans know everything.
P1. Humans do not currently know everything.
P3. Humans cannot know what they don't know.
C. Therefore humans can't currently know what is or is not ultimate knowledge.
C. Therefore any amount of knowledge is possible.
C. Therefore a creator of humans is possible.
C. Therefore string theory is possible.
C. Therefore a multiverse is possible.
C. Therefore a Big Bang is possible.
C, etc,etc,etc!

Which has nothing to do with probabilities which are based upon what humans currently know.
Humans place more credibility on probabilities, based upon things they know, rather than possibilities, because they can't know what they don't know, which is why Science is revisionist in nature.

Many forget this fact, thus insist that what we currently know as ultimate knowledge. But then what do you expect from non scientists?
C. Therefore a square-circle is empirically possible?

The most notable ones who claim they have ultimate knowledge are theists who insist God exists as real empirically.
Theism is based on faith, i.e. belief without proof nor justified reasons.

The others are the New-Agers who toyed with woo-woo, e.g. Age and DAM, Ednoj07, and some who claim they have real knowledge the rest of humanity don't have.
Age
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Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Age »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 6:10 am
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:31 am P1. No further knowledge is possible once humans know everything.
P1. Humans do not currently know everything.
P3. Humans cannot know what they don't know.
C. Therefore humans can't currently know what is or is not ultimate knowledge.
C. Therefore any amount of knowledge is possible.
C. Therefore a creator of humans is possible.
C. Therefore string theory is possible.
C. Therefore a multiverse is possible.
C. Therefore a Big Bang is possible.
C, etc,etc,etc!

Which has nothing to do with probabilities which are based upon what humans currently know.
Humans place more credibility on probabilities, based upon things they know, rather than possibilities, because they can't know what they don't know, which is why Science is revisionist in nature.

Many forget this fact, thus insist that what we currently know as ultimate knowledge. But then what do you expect from non scientists?
C. Therefore a square-circle is empirically possible?

The most notable ones who claim they have ultimate knowledge are theists who insist God exists as real empirically.
Theism is based on faith, i.e. belief without proof nor justified reasons.

The others are the New-Agers who toyed with woo-woo, e.g. Age and DAM, Ednoj07, and some who claim they have real knowledge the rest of humanity don't have.
But it is 'you', "veritas aequitas", who is saying that you have the real KNOWLEDGE. you are the one who is claiming that you KNOW God is a complete IMPOSSIBILITY to exist and be real. Most "others" just say they are waiting for the outcome, because just about any thing is POSSIBLE.

Unlike 'you', "veritas", most people do NOT claim to KNOW what is an IMPOSSIBILITY, like you do.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Age wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 8:23 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 6:10 am
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:31 am ...
C. Therefore a square-circle is empirically possible?

The most notable ones who claim they have ultimate knowledge are theists who insist God exists as real empirically.
Theism is based on faith, i.e. belief without proof nor justified reasons.

The others are the New-Agers who toyed with woo-woo, e.g. Age and DAM, Ednoj07, and some who claim they have real knowledge the rest of humanity don't have.
But it is 'you', "veritas aequitas", who is saying that you have the real KNOWLEDGE. you are the one who is claiming that you KNOW God is a complete IMPOSSIBILITY to exist and be real. Most "others" just say they are waiting for the outcome, because just about any thing is POSSIBLE.

Unlike 'you', "veritas", most people do NOT claim to KNOW what is an IMPOSSIBILITY, like you do.
It is Stupid to insist, "Therefore a square-circle is empirically possible to be known"
Age
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Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: The Ontological God is the Ultimate God.

Post by Age »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2019 3:25 am
Age wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 8:23 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 6:10 am
C. Therefore a square-circle is empirically possible?

The most notable ones who claim they have ultimate knowledge are theists who insist God exists as real empirically.
Theism is based on faith, i.e. belief without proof nor justified reasons.

The others are the New-Agers who toyed with woo-woo, e.g. Age and DAM, Ednoj07, and some who claim they have real knowledge the rest of humanity don't have.
But it is 'you', "veritas aequitas", who is saying that you have the real KNOWLEDGE. you are the one who is claiming that you KNOW God is a complete IMPOSSIBILITY to exist and be real. Most "others" just say they are waiting for the outcome, because just about any thing is POSSIBLE.

Unlike 'you', "veritas", most people do NOT claim to KNOW what is an IMPOSSIBILITY, like you do.
It is Stupid to insist, "Therefore a square-circle is empirically possible to be known"
If that is what you have now concluded, then so be it.

Also, what do you think I am "insisting"?

You are insisting that some thing is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE, correct?
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