Excellent. I'd prefer to watch this live but these damn time-zone differences!
How long is this planned to run?
TabletopJoe
The greatest thing about this greatest thing called God is that this greatest being loves each and every single individual without distinction and that God never changes no matter what the single individual does.
skwbtm
Enjoyable so far. Always folow Rictus. We may not agree on evrything but he knows worthwhile people.
PrincipledUncertainty
Just letting the viewer know: the podcast isn't starting for another hour.
ImpulseEqualsVCubed
Another good one is spontaneous generation and germ theory . . .
cseguin
Ozy - but a bridge can always be improved in some way . . . it's like the perfect island rebuttal - an island can always be improved in some way.
cseguin
I'm not convinced this argument gets you omnibenevolence for free. Obviously all lesser beings would conceive of it as benevolent, for purely selfish reasons. If we're considering all possible conceptions, then we need to include its conception of itself; why would it conceive of itself with any moral restrictions at all? What could it stand to gain?
bgbbft
If Anselm's argument is valid then it would also follow that the worst concievable being would also necissary exist and for the same reasons. For example an all hatefull, all unjust etc. being would be even worse IF it existed. So where does that get us? Do we need to accept that both God and Anti-God exists? And wouldn't their existence be mutually exclusive since a maximally good being wouldn't allow the existence of a maximally evil being and vice versa?
klimpelavemander
I think I nodded off at some point so please pardon this if it's been addressed, but isn't there a meaningful difference between omnipotence and what I guess would be "superpotence"? That is, the difference between being capable of everything (all-powerful) and simply being the superlative of powerful things (above-the-rest-powerful).
To illustrate what I mean, let's take a closed system of multiple things (let's say a cat and a cat toy in a box). The cat is the most powerful thing in the box, most good, most acting, most doing, and it is meaningful in that system, because it can be compared to it's toy. However, it doesn't follow that that cat is the creator of everything in that system, even though for that system he's the superlative.
"Try to imagine beyond that" well you're still talking about the superlative, not the all. No matter what, however close to infinity you get you'll never reach it. And throughing existence on that arbitrarily is as meaningless as saying "infinity plus one". The other approach, broadening the definition, means you're comparing unlike things, akin to comparing complex numbers.
tovarischkrasnyjeshi
Doesn't Goedel leave out an actual description other than positive qualities, which are undefined, leaving you with any god you want to plug in ?
andrewclark
Please bear with us for a few minutes, we're just waiting for the last panelists to trickle in.
ImpulseEqualsVCubed
Ok, I should have waited. At least I'm in good company.
Tracejen
Nice to see it placed into it's historical context too. They often have a bearing on the origins and purposes... it's worth bearing in mind that the great schism of 1054 (east and West) had brought the validity of church into question too... which one was right.
The Seljuq-Fatamid wars and it's disruptions had brought more jewish and eastern philosophy/theology to the west too, raising new issues.
andrewclark
I’m out sadly. Can I leave you with my own objection, for what it’s worth. It’s similar to Kant’s - in lines 3&4 Anselm is confusing the thing as imagined with the thing in reality. To make clear sense 3&4 should read
3 If the being we imagine is imagined to exist only in our mind, then it is not being conceived of as a "being than which none greater can be conceived".
4 A being than which none greater can be conceived must also be conceived of as existing in reality.
TabletopJoe
I'm hosting a podcast for the first time at 6PM CST. It will be a discussion in the same style, and under the same umbrella, as the ones hosted by Jon F. McDropout on the topics of the Euthyphro Dilemma and Van Tillian Presuppositionalism. Tonight, we'll be tackling Anselm's ontological argument, in the form of his famous Proslogion. The panelists will be Ozymandias Ramses II, Epicurus A. Greek, and Adrian Nelson.
Just as a note to those who've watched in the past: Jon will still be hosting the Monday shows. I'm going to try to host Friday shows in addition to the Monday ones, not as a replacement of them.
ImpulseEqualsVCubed
I don't get how Anselm's rejection of the "greatest bridge" parody is valid.
1) Yes, it's impossible to agree on which properties make the bridge "the greatest", but that does not mean that there isn't a hypothetical "greatest possible bridge". This same objection applies to the "greatest possible being" as well.
2) If you keep adding properties until it's no longer a bridge (for example, if it covers the entire Earth), then it's not "the greatest possible bridge", and you're thinking of something else.
3) Yes, you can always "add additional features", but this is also true if you don't constrain it either. Whether we're talking bridges or gods, we only have to conceive of the greatest possible X that _could be conceived_. You don't actually have to be able to conceive of it.
As a side note, during this entire video I'm waiting for someone to say "GOD DOES NOT EXIST IN THE MIND". Every other complaint seems to be irrelevant. It's merely a figure of speech to say that a concept *exists* "in the mind", or "in my understanding". There is no actual deity "in" my mind, because my mind is not a location, it's a construct; a map, not a place. The greatest possible being does not have the property of greatness (which implies existence) *unless* it exists. It's conditional. If it doesn't exist, it's not great, except as a concept. But concepts alone don't have actual properties, only hypothetical properties, _if they exist_.
It's a trick of equivocation to say "God exists (in the mind), which implies greatness, which implies existence". The first "exists" is a figure of speech only, and the second is not.
Flyborg
Galileo et all had more problems with parellax too so it wasn't thought quite good enough to replace the existing model practically
andrewclark
From Anselm's 'greatest' through the arguments using 'perfection', to Gödel's 'positive', none of these concepts can possibly do what is asked of them, they have no objective meaning.
mechtheist
I'm only 45 minutes in but I can't wait! What does existence add? My immediate thought is, the argument gives no reason why existence holds primacy over non-existence.
Tracejen
Why does God HAVE to be ultimately good? Why is this assumed???
