The Modal Ontological Argument - Without Modal Logic

[MindForgedManacle]

to pop into existance ex nihilo is impossible. nothing is the absence of anything, which means no things, no properties, no anything. as such, nothing can't "do" anything. if something popped into existence, caused by nothing, you would essentially be saying nothing caused something which is logically absurd. if something exists and it is possible for it not to exist, there must be a reason it exists rather than not.

Uhg. You are very dense if you are fooling yourself into this metaphysical conclusion by merely using VERY imprecise language. To say that something came into existence ex nihilo is not to say "nothing caused something to exist" (<- the imprecise language), it is to say that something exists but had no prior ontic reference or antecedent cause.

And again, to say there MUST be a reason why something exists seems to be something contemporary philosophers have effectively rejected, most notably continental philosopher Quentin Meillasoux in his book "After Finitude" (it may .

so Stanford is wrong then? also i think it's funny you think something can only be known metaphysically possible if it is physically demonstrated. yet what if the metaphysically possibility is known a priori? for example, logic dictates its metaphysical possibility. then according to Kant, such a thing would be "necessarily possible" which can simply be reduced to possible using axiom S5 (the one you hate so much even though there's nothing wrong with it).

When did I say "physically" demonstrated? I didn't. Regardless, yes, unless something has been demonstrated to exist you ONLY have epistemic possibility in assessing its possible existence because to claim otherwise is to make claims beyond what you know by definition.

I don't 'hate' S5, what I detest are people who don't actually understand S5 (you), much less what you NECESSARILY give up when working with the S5 axiom(s) - namely talking about metaphysics - and prat on about having disproved atheism.

you claimed it was theoretical as though that is proof it is metaphysically possible yet it's not even shown to be mathematically possible yet. this was after you claimed you can only show it is metaphysically possible if it is demonstrated. you were intentionally misleading as an attempt to avoid admitting defeat concerning the Stanford example.

I'm perfectly willing to revise my views on what can be said to be metaphysically possible.

And as for intentionally misleading, bullshit and I can show how you misused your source:

In additional, to the distinction between de re and de dicto modality there are some generally accepted, although not controversial, definitions and examples of the various kinds of modality.

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φ is epistemically possible for a subject S if and only if φ is not ruled out by what S knows.

In other words, you can't go beyond what you know. And anyway, how does one KNOW which possible worlds are metaphysically possible in the first place? Again, trying to make strong metaphysical claims on the basis of S5 is vacuous.

not even Kant would agree with you there. he gives distinction between a priori and a posteriori and both are said to prove metaphysical possibility or necessity. you're making your own baseless assertions.

Yes and Kant turns out to have been wrong on a number of things. For one thing, Kant though (if I remember correctly) that Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics were metaphysically necessary, but nowadays we know that is completely false.

that is how they are defined. if X is a perfection, then it is better to have X than lack it. this would be what is called a priori, just as 2+2=4 is a priori. so how does this come into play?
1. greater making properties don't entail their negation of lesser making properties.
2. omnipotence is a maximally great making property.
3. therefore omnipotence cannot entail its negation of non-omnipotence.
since it can't entail its negation, it can't be impossible which means it is possible.

Arguments by definitions are tautologies and thus generally useless, such as here.

Too easy man. For one, "better" necessarily entails a value judgement which gives the argument a different logical standing. Now you're not talking about an objective thing, but what you happen to like. That is NOT a priori in any sense of the term, anymore than the statement "Castling makes chess better" is an a priori truth.

You further misunderstand your own argument there. Not entailing a lesser-making property (again, a subjective value judgement) simply means an omnipotent be can't be impotent, not that omnipotence is possible.

in this case, there is only one great making property necessary here. so there's no conflict between multiple great making properties.

Aren't you forgetting omniscience and omnibenevolence?

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that's a rewording of what i said. the conclusion follows (or is true) from the premises. you can also say the truth of the conclusion is directly related to the truth of the premises. again, you're playing semantics. and the way i worded it is also worded similarly in many sources:

A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

As I said, structure is what's relevant here, which directly means whether there are any logical fallacies determines if the argument is structured properly.

An argument is valid just if it would be impossible for its premises all to be true and its conclusion false simultaneously.
http://logic.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/tutorial1/Tut1-07.htm

In other words, the conclusion has to follow from the premises.

A valid argument is one in which the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of its conclusion.
http://www.unc.edu/~megw/Logic.html

I like how on this one, you explicitly cut out the part that says exactly what I've been saying, directly in the sentence before the part you quote:

"If the logical form is a good one, the resulting argument will be valid."

Truth is not directly relevant to the validity of an argument. I can have a valid argument, yet it be completely false. ALL of the sources you quote are specifically saying that valid arguments are those which, properly structured, will have the conclusion follow from the premises, ones which the truth of the premises will lead to a true conclusion.


Now, you keep saying I built my counter argument such that it needs the MOA to be valid. Malarkey.
For one, all you do is say that your argument trumps mine. If we take the route of thinking S5 can actually tell us anything strong about metaphysics, then our arguments conflict, your's does not get primacy. All my argument does is take the claim that God has to exist in all possible worlds if he exists, and shows how that allows for a counter argument by showing an, under the aforementioned assumption about S5, that there must be a possible world in which God doesn't exist. The whole point is that by your own standard of using S5 in this way, you necessarily have to demonstrate that metaphysical naturalism is indisputably incoherent before even attempting your argument. My argument is in no way built on assuming the truth of your from the get-go. It assumes the claim that for God to exist he must be in all possible worlds, and points out that there is at least 1 possible world God can't exist in, and thus by your own definition rules out God's actual existence.

So rather than just pretend your argument has primacy, try to actually show it.