Shadow thread for MOA H2H Debate

[rikuoamero]

As the title says, this is a shadow thread for the Head-to-Head debate currently in progress here
viewtopic.php?t=32046

Other than this post, I will NOT interact with this thread. I merely wanted to provide a set space for discussion on the debate for other users.

[Divine Insight]

I am not ignoring the observations of the actual characteristic of the real world, I am asking you not to ignore pure logic. The fact that pure logic does not match real world observations means there has to be either an error in logic, or an error in your observations.

I already showed you where the error was. It's in step #4:

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

This is where this syllogism breaks down. The very moment that this pure philosophical musing starts making statements about the real world it has automatically placed itself at the mercy of the actual characteristics of the real world.

It it want to claim that an omnipresent omnibenevolent being exists in our world, then our world would need to also be omnibenevolent. The fact that this musing into pure philosophical imagination fails to take into consideration the actual properties or our world is where this syllogism fails.

That is the "logical error" here.

Pure logic necessarily match up 100% with reality, without exception.

Says who?

Although, in a sense you might be correct. Because the MOA syllogism actually made a logical error when it claims that it's imaginary MGB must exist in our world without checking to see if that's actually true.

So actually that is an error in this logic. In fact, that is the error in ALL purely philosophical ponderings that don't take into consideration the real world whilst simultaneously claiming to make statements about what the real world must be like.

This is the error that 'pure philosophers' fail to recognize and acknowledge. This is why Stephen Hawking is 100% when he says that pure philosophy that doesn't take into consideration scientific observations of the real world is DEAD.

Failure to acknowledge reality is the problem here.

The MOA starts by defining an entity that is both omnipresent and omnibenevolent (i.e. perfectly moral)... That's fine and dandy as an exercise in "pure philosophy".

That is the problem I am trying to highlight, it is NOT fine and dandy as an exercise in "pure philosophy. Reason and reality must match up 100%.

But it is fine and dandy, they just came to the WRONG conclusion that's all. And the reason they came to the wrong conclusion is because they failed to recognize and acknowledge the actual attributes and characteristic of the real world.

You can postulate anything you so desire. Therefore they made no mistake in postulating their MGB. Where the mistake occurred in in step #4 where their failed to recognize that their imaginary MGB cannot be said to exist in our world because our world fails to exhibit the properties it would need to exhibit for that to be true.

IF our world was indeed perfectly moral, then we couldn't dismiss the MOA based on step #4. But clearly that's not the case.

Moreover, even if our world was perfectly moral that still doesn't justify the absurd conclusion of #6 made in the MOA.

Even if our world was perfect moral the conclusion could only be that it may be possible that this imagined MOA might exist.

So even if our world was perfectly moral this still wouldn't "prove" that this proposed MGB must exist. It would only show that its potential existence can't be refuted.

However, since our world is not perfectly moral that actually does prove that the MOA is totally false. There cannot exist an MGB that is both omnipresent and omnibenevolent because our world exists and this MGB cannot exist in our world because our world is not benevolent.

So our real world actually prove that this imagined MGB cannot possible exist at all as it was originally defined. Our world is the EVIDENCE that this MGB cannot exist.

You are basically asking me to ignore evidence.

However the moment that we "wake up" from our blind stupor of "pure philosophical pondering" and look around at the real world we observe that our world is not omnibenevolent (i.e. not perfectly moral), and this then proves that our world cannot be one of the worlds predicted by this unrestrained philosophical musing.

Therefore, either there is a flaw in said philosophical musing, or your observation is wrong and this world is indeed morally perfect.

Exactly. So it's up to you to now decide for yourself whether or not you think our world is morally perfect.

Clearly Christians (who make the MOA argument) do not believe that our world is perfectly moral. So this MOA argument fails miserably for them.

It is true that some other religious paradigms do hold that everything that happens in this world is indeed perfectly moral even though we may not judge this to be the case. For those religions perhaps the MOA can apply since they claim that our world is indeed perfectly moral.

There's no point in ignoring reality in favor of a purely abstract philosophical pondering. Wouldn't you agree?

Agreed, but we also cannot ignore a purely abstract philosophical pondering in favour of real life observation. If you observation doesn't match your logic, that means you made a mistake, either in logic or observation. That is because logic is just as much part of reality as observation, we have the law of identity exactly because that's how we observed reality work.

I would disagree with this in general.

We can imagine that our universe is eternal and has always existed and always will exist. There is no "Logical Flaw" in that ideal. UNTIL we actually observe our universe and recognize that it did have a beginning and is heading for a heat death, and that the thermodynamic law of entropy appears to hold overall.

Only making making that OBSERVATION of the real world can we toss out any philosophical pondering that our universe is eternal and unchanging overall in its macro properties.

The same was true for the classical picture of a "Clockwork Mechanical Universe" that obeys solely the laws of classical physics. There was no apparent purely logical reason why our world couldn't have been constructed in that manner. It wasn't until we made OBSERVATIONS on the behavior of the real world that we were able to dismiss that purely philosophical notion.

So since our world is not omnibenevolent this purely imagined MGB cannot exist in our world...

So where exactly is the flaw in the syllogism? You were granting each step of the way, right up to the point where it stop matching your observation. Literally, that cannot logically happen. You have just produce an actual example of real life contradiction, all of logic is invalidated, reality explode in a shower of impossible shapes; or alternatively, you mistakenly granted the steps that were non sequitur.

I don't see the validity of your objection.

According to the logic of the MOA argument our world would need to be perfectly moral and omnibenevolent. The OBSERVATION that it isn't perfectly moral and omnibenevolent is more than sufficient EVIDENCE to dismiss this random arbitrary philosophical pondering.

So it's clearly a flawed argument.

Clearly, as I concur with your observations that the world is not perfect. But where is the flaw? You rejected the claim that "MGB exists in every world, therefore MGB exist in this word," and yet this step is logically valid. Where is the flaw if not in this step?

The flaw is in step #4

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

Ok that FINE! Let's then LOOK at our world and see if this is true.

Upon actual OBSERVATION we discover that this is not true.

So now what do we do? Do we reject reality? Or do we recognize that this argument simply cannot be true?

Your choice.

We can imagine a universe that has always existed, never had a beginning, and will never end. But that doesn't match up with what we actually observe.

Right, this much is fine since there are no sound argument for an eternal universe, had there been one then we would be in trouble.

But this example is different, you thought the argument was logical and yet its conclusion does not match reality. You are in effect saying reality is not logical and cannot be understood rationally.

How is this argument any different?

It NEVER gave any sound reasons or arguments for why its hypothetical MGB needs to exist.

It simply defined it to be that way totally arbitrarily.

In pure logic you are free to arbitrarily define anything you so desire as an unproven PREMISE. That doesn't make it real.

In fact this is yet another error in the MOA.

Typically you don't define an unproven premise and then argue why your premise must be true. That's very BAD logic. You never try to use logic to prove your own premises.

Although in mathematics they often use logic to prove that certain premises cannot be true because they lead to a contradiction. And that's actually what we have here. The MOA leads to a contradiction. The contradiction being that if the MOA was true our world would need to be perfectly moral and benevolent, and it's not.

So this is the contradiction that shows that the premise of the MOA was indeed false.

The MOA is a great example of proof by contradiction that its very won premise must necessarily be false.

So philosophy is useless. If we care about truth we must take into consideration what we actually observe to be the case in our real world...

I accept that philosophy is useless in the sense that science trumps philosophy, we must align philosophy with real world observation but never the other way round; science does every thing philosophy can and more.

However science and philosophy must still always be aligned. If we are about truth, we cannot say the argument for X is sound, but X is still incorrect.

Perhaps this is where you are misunderstanding the whole thing?

The MOA argument is sound! Save for step #4!

If its proposed MGB did actually exist then everything the MOA claims would need to be true. It's a SOUND argument. With the exception that it makes predictions about our world that are clearly not true.

Therefore there must be something wrong, right?

So what's wrong? Well the PREMISE WAS WRONG!

An MBG that is both omnipresent and omnibenevolent cannot exist. Why, because our world exists and is not omnibenevolent.

So its the PREMISE that was false, not the argument.

If our world was perfectly moral and benevolent, then we couldn't find any fault with the MOA save for the final step #6 which claims that its proposed MGB "must then exist".

But actually that is non sequitur anyway. Even if our world was perfectly moral and benevolent that still wouldn't guarantee that this proposed MGB exists. It would only show that it "might possibly exist". Since we can't find any reason to deny it.

But clearly since our world is not omnibenevolent we have more than sufficient evidence to show that this MGB cannot exist as it was defined.

So this MOA actually shows that its very own premise of an MGB is a "logical contradiction" because it leads to a logical contradiction (i.e. our world would need to be omnibenevolent and it's not). That's a contradiction.

[Kenisaw]

Pardon my butting in of your conversation, but I noticed something that needed commenting on.

Pure logic is spot on...in the world of logic. Reality is most certainly not the world of logic. The two worlds are NOT the same thing. Logic can be error free in it's world, and observation of reality can be error free in it's world, and they can contradict because they don't inhabit the same space.

There is a difference between a truth and a fact. Logical truths are not always facts in reality.

https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/logic.htm

"Formal logic was invented in Classical Greece and integrated into a `system' of thought by Aristotle. It was, for him, a tool for finding truth, but it didn't keep him from making the most profound errors of thought. Nearly every argument and conclusion he made about physical science was wrong and misguided. Any tool can be misused, and in these pre-scientific days logic was misused repeatedly.
So what went wrong? Aristotle understood that logic can be used to deduce true consequences from true premises. His error was his failure to realize that we have no absolutely true premises, except ones we define to be true (such as 2+2=4). Aristotle thought that the mind contains (from birth) some innate and absolutely true knowledge that can be used as premises for logical arguments. Medieval scholastics, who brought Aristotelian modes of thought to a height of absurdity, thought that absolutely true premises could be found in revelations from God, as recorded in the Bible.

Another error was to assume that the conclusions from a logical argument represent new truths. In fact, the deduced conclusions are just restatements and repackaging of the content contained in the premises. The conclusions may look new to us, because we hadn't thought through the logic, but they contain no more than the information contained in the premises. They are just cast in new form, a form that may seem to give us new insight and suggest new applications, but in fact no new information or truths are generated. This is especially noticeable in mathematics, for without considerable instruction in mathematics, the deductions from even a small set of premises are not at all obvious, and may take years to develop and understand.

The bottom line is that logic alone can tell us nothing new about the real world. Ditto for mathematics, as Albert Einstein observed: "Insofar as mathematics is exact, it does not apply to reality; and insofar as mathematics applies to reality, it is not exact."

[Bust Nak]

Sorry, I have to quibble with that one. Take the following argument:

If pink unicorns exist, then we can logically assume that some unicorns are pink.

It's pure fancy, but logically sound. Logic is about internal consistency based on defined terms. Granted, if the defined terms are useless, the logical implications are equally useless (See the MOA as put forward by FTK), but that doesn't mean the internal logic is necessarily wrong (again the MOA as put foward by FTK is not logically consistent either - so that's 2 strikes).

It is logically sound, and it matches our observation 100%. We can indeed assume that some unicorns are pink given pick unicorns. This is no good for making predictions about our world sure, but it is not a counter example to my claim. Show me something that is logically sound but does not match our observation.

[Bust Nak]

I already showed you where the error was. It's in step #4:

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

This is where this syllogism breaks down.

How so? The statement as presented is 100% accurate. If X exists in every possible world, then it does indeed exists in the actual world. For all X, regardless of what X is.

It it want to claim that an omnipresent omnibenevolent being exists in our world, then our world would need to also be omnibenevolent. The fact that this musing into pure philosophical imagination fails to take into consideration the actual properties or our world is where this syllogism fails.

That is the "logical error" here.

No, this is why we know the syllogism fails, but you still haven't shown where it fails. That's like saying, okay the rocket exploded, that's the error, it exploded when it shouldn't. But you haven't figured out what the flaw is.

Although, in a sense you might be correct. Because the MOA syllogism actually made a logical error when it claims that it's imaginary MGB must exist in our world without checking to see if that's actually true.

That's not a logical error. All it mean was the author should have known better than to present it knowing it generates a logical contradiction.

But it is fine and dandy, they just came to the WRONG conclusion that's all.

A sound argument CANNOT come to the WRONG conclusion. That an argument came to the wrong conclusion necessarily mean it was not sound.

You can postulate anything you so desire. Therefore they made no mistake in postulating their MGB. Where the mistake occurred in in step #4 where their failed to recognize that their imaginary MGB cannot be said to exist in our world because our world fails to exhibit the properties it would need to exhibit for that to be true.

And yet step #4 is perfectly sound.

[more exposition cropped]

To go back to my analogy. You keep explain to me that the rocket exploded when it shouldn't have, therefore the rocket is faulty in exquisite detail. I get that, rockets shouldn't explode, but you are not telling me what made it explode. You just keep telling me, it exploded, that's all we need to know to toss the design in the bin. True enough, we can toss it.

What made me complain loudly, is that you were following the design step by step, affirming that everything is fine right up to the point where it exploded, and yet on examination, the final step is 100% problem free, that means you missed where the real mistake was.

I would disagree with [logic having to matching up with reality 100%] in general.

We can imagine that our universe is eternal and has always existed and always will exist. There is no "Logical Flaw" in that ideal...

Of course there are logical flaws with that ideal, the premises of eternal universe arguments turned out to be false. They are not sound, that's hugely flawed.

Only making making that OBSERVATION of the real world can we toss out any philosophical pondering that our universe is eternal and unchanging overall in its macro properties...

We tossed them out because they don't match our observation, but we have also explicitly identified how the logic of said philosophical pondering is flawed, namely with its soundness. I am now asking you to do the same, don't just toss them, point out where it is flawed. We agreed that it is flawed, but where? You pointed to step #4, but that step is fine.

The flaw is in step #4

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

Ok that FINE! Let's then LOOK at our world and see if this is true.

That's the thing, we looked and discovered that it IS true. It is indeed the case that IF a maximally great being exists in every possible world, THEN it exists in the actual world (our world). I kept pushing you because that is not where the flaw is. Step #4 is fine.

So now what do we do? Do we reject reality? Or do we recognize that this argument simply cannot be true?

How about we don't reject reality, recognize that this argument simply cannot be true. AND on top of that clearly identify where the flaw is. It is not step 4, because that part is irrefutably true.

It simply defined it to be that way totally arbitrarily. In pure logic you are free to arbitrarily define anything you so desire as an unproven PREMISE. That doesn't make it real.

... So this is the contradiction that shows that the premise of the MOA was indeed false.

The MOA is a great example of proof by contradiction that its very won premise must necessarily be false.

You are getting hotter. Look away from step 4.

The MOA argument is sound! Save for step #4!

NO NO NO, step 4 is perfectly fine. Yet the argument is not sound, therefore the flaw lies elsewhere.

So what's wrong? Well the PREMISE WAS WRONG!

An MBG that is both omnipresent and omnibenevolent cannot exist. Why, because our world exists and is not omnibenevolent.

So its the PREMISE that was false, not the argument.

BINGO! Took a while to get here, but that's my main point settled. Do you wish to drill down on how step 4 is perfectly valid or is that now clear enough?

[Bust Nak]

Pardon my butting in of your conversation, but I noticed something that needed commenting on.

Pure logic is spot on...in the world of logic. Reality is most certainly not the world of logic. The two worlds are NOT the same thing. Logic can be error free in it's world, and observation of reality can be error free in it's world, and they can contradict because they don't inhabit the same space.

There is a difference between a truth and a fact. Logical truths are not always facts in reality.

Same request as above, can you show me an example of a logically sound argument, that generated an incorrect conclusion about reality? Show me a logical truth that is not also a fact in reality.

"Formal logic was invented in Classical Greece and integrated into a `system' of thought by Aristotle. It was, for him, a tool for finding truth, but it didn't keep him from making the most profound errors of thought. Nearly every argument and conclusion he made about physical science was wrong and misguided. Any tool can be misused, and in these pre-scientific days logic was misused repeatedly."

Exactly my point - where logical conclusion does not match observation, a tool was misused. Or as I put it, there is either an error in logic, or an error in observations. I guess you were suggesting that Aristotle's incorrect conclusion about reality were "logical truths?" I would object to that. With false premises, his faulty conclusion are not logical truths.

The bottom line is that logic alone can tell us nothing new about the real world. Ditto for mathematics, as Albert Einstein observed: "Insofar as mathematics is exact, it does not apply to reality; and insofar as mathematics applies to reality, it is not exact."

No arguments from me here, and yet all sound arguments, i.e. valid syllogisms plus true premises, generate facts.

[Divine Insight]

Sorry, I have to quibble with that one. Take the following argument:

If pink unicorns exist, then we can logically assume that some unicorns are pink.

It's pure fancy, but logically sound. Logic is about internal consistency based on defined terms. Granted, if the defined terms are useless, the logical implications are equally useless (See the MOA as put forward by FTK), but that doesn't mean the internal logic is necessarily wrong (again the MOA as put foward by FTK is not logically consistent either - so that's 2 strikes).

It is logically sound, and it matches our observation 100%. We can indeed assume that some unicorns are pink given pick unicorns. This is no good for making predictions about our world sure, but it is not a counter example to my claim. Show me something that is logically sound but does not match our observation.

For one thing the MOA is not logically sound. For one thing step # 6 is totally non sequitur. It does not follow from this argument that this MGB must therefore exist.

And this would be true even if our world qualified for this MGB. Just becasue this argument doesn't give any reason to prove that the MGB doesn't exist, it doesn't prove that it must exist either.

So the MOA is not logically sound in its final statement in any case:

6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

The MOA argument did not make a case for the conclusion stated in #6.

The most that could be said in step #6 is "Therefore we cannot rule out the possibility that the MGB might exist."

But that would only be true if our world was indeed perfectly moral and omnibenevolent. Since our world is not perfectly moral and omnibenevolent, we can actually concluded from this observation of reality that the premise of the MOA was false to begin with.

So the MOA actually proves its own premise to be false by bringing our world into the argument.


Keep in mind that a premise does not need to be true for a logical argument to be "sound".

In fact, this is one method we use to prove that the square root of 2 is indeed irrational. We begin that argument by stating the following premise:

P1: There exists a rational number a/b that is precisely equal to the square root of 2.

Then we run though the argument making OBSERVATIONS of how mathematics actually works and we end up with a proof that our original premise must have necessarily been false.

Here's a video of that proof by contradiction in detail:

[youtube] that the square root of 2 is irrational[/youtube]

You can view the MOA in the same way.

You begin by making up a totally arbitrary premise (the premise does not need to be true!)

And then you work through logical arguments assuming your premise to be true and see where it lead. It if leads to a contradiction then the premise must have been false.

So with the MOA there is nothing wrong with the premise. In logic you are permitted to make up whatever premise you so desire. The premise itself does not need to be true.

Then you make arguments based on what that premise demands. Which is what the MOA does. It makes that argument that its hypothetical MGB is both omnipresent and therefore must exist in every possible world. Therefore it's logically sound to demand that it must also exist in our world as well since our world is clearly among the set of possible worlds.

Where the MOA FAILS is that it refuses to OBSERVE that our world is not omnibenevolent therefore violating its very own premise that its MGB is omnibenevolent.

It has already proven the fallacy of its MGB in step #4 but fails to acknowledge this. We were done at step #4 because we came to a logical contradiction. This omnibenevolent MGB is supposed to exist in our world but our world isn't omnibenevolent. That is a contradiction. So at this point we're done and we can stop. We have already proven that the MGB is a false premise.

But the MOA continues on with two more statements that are both clearly false and non sequitur:

5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.

This statement is basically redundant anyway. Of course if the MGB exists in the actual would it would indeed exist. However the MOA has never established that the MGB exists in our world. In fact, since our world is not omnibenevolent this MGB cannot exist in our world anyway. So step #5 is wrong. We should have stopped at step #4 having already recognized that this MGB cannot exist in our world to begin with.

Step #6 fails logic 101 in all cases.

6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

At no point did the MOA ever establish the actual existence of this MGB. So it cannot conclude #6 in any case. Even if our world was perfectly moral and omnibenevolent, that wouldn't prove that the MGB actually exists. It would only suggest that it might possibly exist.

So the conclusion stated in #6 is not a sound conclusion in any case.]

So the MOA actually has several different problems and it's not a logically sound argument in any case. Even if our world were perfectly moral and omnibenevolent the MOA did not establish that this MGB necessarily exists.

At best it only stated that this MGB must necessarily exist in its premise. But remember a premise is not truth. A premise is just an arbitrary statement, definition, or condition upon which we can begin a logical argument.

As shown in the proof-by-contradiction of the square root of 2, it's perfectly legitimate to begin with a totally arbitrary false premise.

We can't go back to the premise to use the premise as 'proof' of itself because we had never established that the premise was true before stating it.

But the proponents of the MOA try to do just that. They keep referring back to their premise like as if the premise had already established the necessary existence of their MGB,

That is NOT sound logic. In fact, that's the cheapest trick in the book that is often used by people who try to pretend that their totally arbitrary premises must be taken as the Gospel Truth. That's a violation of logic 101.

You can't demand that an unproven premise must be true. That's not sound logic.

So the MOA fails on several counts.

It fails on step #4 by refusing to observe the true nature of the real world.
It fails on step #5 by continuing to move forward without realizing that step #4 had already failed.
It fails on step #6 because that doesn't follow logically in any case. There is no logical reason to conclude #6

And the proponents of the MOA fail miserably by continually referring back to their premise of the existence of their MGB like as if that has somehow been established as undeniable proof since it has been given as a "premise'.

That's not how logic works. An arbitrary premise cannot be pointed to and asserted to be a necessarily truth just because it was proclaimed to be a premise in the beginning.

That is a very common pitfall of people who claim to be using logic to prove thing.

You can't point to your arbitrary premise as proof of itself.

If you could do that then you could prove anything at all. Just state it as a "premise" and your done. No one could argue with it because you had stated it as a "premise".

But as you saw in the proof-by-contradiction for the square root of 2, you can indeed start with premises that aren't true and then worth though logic that actually proves that the premise must be false.

In the case of the MOA the premise of the MGB must be false. The proposed MGB cannot exist anymore than a rational solution to the square root of 2 can exist.

Hopefully the above explanation will put the MOA in its eternal grave.

[Divine Insight]

The flaw is in step #4

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

Ok that FINE! Let's then LOOK at our world and see if this is true.

That's the thing, we looked and discovered that it IS true. It is indeed the case that IF a maximally great being exists in every possible world, THEN it exists in the actual world (our world). I kept pushing you because that is not where the flaw is. Step #4 is fine.

Step #4 is fine logically, but only if we recognize and acknowledge that the MBG cannot exist in our world becasue our would is not omnibenevolent.

At step #4 we are already DONE!

The argument can now end and we can conclude that the premise must have been false.

The failure of the MOA is to continue on as if there was no problem at step #4.

Step #4 proves the fallacy of the premise.

So step #5 is meaningless.

And step #6 is a logical error in any case.

Even if our world were benevolent and we could continue on with step #5 we still could not conclude step #6.

Just because we have stated in step #5 that IF an MBG exists in our world then it must exist, hasn't established that it does exist.

So the conclusion in step #6 is non sequitur in any case.

In short, even if our world was omnibenevolent the MOA would not have established that its proposed MGB "must" exist. At best all it could conclude is that we haven't found any reason to show that it can't exist.

But in step #4 we DID show reason why the MGB cannot exist.

So the MOA should have stopped at step #4 and recognized that its proposed MGB cannot exist. And that's where the argument should have ended right there.

At that point it would indeed be a logically sound argument and it would have proven that its own proposed MGB cannot exist as originally defined. Just like mathematicians have proven that a rational solution to the square root of 2 cannot exist.

[benchwarmer]

Sorry, I have to quibble with that one. Take the following argument:

If pink unicorns exist, then we can logically assume that some unicorns are pink.

It's pure fancy, but logically sound. Logic is about internal consistency based on defined terms. Granted, if the defined terms are useless, the logical implications are equally useless (See the MOA as put forward by FTK), but that doesn't mean the internal logic is necessarily wrong (again the MOA as put foward by FTK is not logically consistent either - so that's 2 strikes).

It is logically sound, and it matches our observation 100%. We can indeed assume that some unicorns are pink given pick unicorns. This is no good for making predictions about our world sure, but it is not a counter example to my claim. Show me something that is logically sound but does not match our observation.

I just did unless you have observed pink unicorns. Have you? I haven't, that's why I used that example.

Change 'pink unicorn' to anything you like that is not known to exist. It doesn't change the logic of the statement made.

Basically I have imagined an object and made a logical statement about that object. i.e. if it exists, then the following can also logically follow.

Whether we ever observe the object does not change the logic in the statement. It does however call into question the definition of the object in the first place.

This is the main crux of the issue some of us have with the MOA. You can't define things however you like and then play word games to make them poof into existence regardless of how logical the word games are. In the case put forward by FTK both the definitions and the word games have issues.

[Divine Insight]

Basically I have imagined an object and made a logical statement about that object. i.e. if it exists, then the following can also logically follow.

Whether we ever observe the object does not change the logic in the statement. It does however call into question the definition of the object in the first place.

In the case of the MOA the object in question is defined to be both omnipresent and omnibenevolent. We can observe that our universe is not omnibenevolent thus violating the definition of this proposed object. Therefore we can conclude that this object cannot exist in our world.

Moreover, since this object cannot exist in our world and it was defined to be omnipresent in all worlds, then clearly it can't exist at all as it was defined.

So not only can we call into question the definition of this object, but we can decisively show by direct evidence (i.e. the mere existence of our world) that it cannot exist at all.

So the MOA actually proves its own proposed MGB to be a false premise.

Only if our universe were observed to be omnibenevolent could we even continue to entertain the thought that this proposed MGB might actually exist. But even then we certainly wouldn't have any logical reason to conclude that it actually does exist.

So the MOA is in error even if we ignore the fact that our world doesn't satisfy the conditions necessary for the existence of its proposed MGB. It's still in error in its ultimately conclusion that the MGB actually exists. There is no logical grounds for conclusion #6 in any case.

Conclusion #6 is an error in logic no matter what.

[Divine Insight]

Consider the following argument:

Definition of our omnipresent Jolly Green Giant

Omnipresent: Presence is manifested, whether physically or spiritually, everywhere, at any given time


We can assume that the above entity can exist at least in our imagination (i.e. in the world of pure unrestrained thought)

So now let's start our Jolly Green Giant argument:

1. It is possible that an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists

2. If it is possible that an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists, then an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists in some possible world.

3. If an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.

4. If an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

5. If an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists in the actual world, then an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists.

6. Therefore, an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists.

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Is the above a valid logical argument? If so, the an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant must necessarily exist.

But it's not a valid argument. We could complain about #4 in this case stating that no one has ever seen this Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant. But we could argue that it's not only green, but it's also invisible. Although that's actually a logical contradiction anyway.

But let's assume that we couldn't argue against #4 for some reason, would then the rest of the argument be valid?

Well, no, it wouldn't. Because even though #5 would be true IF an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists, that doesn't mean that an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant necessarily does exist in our universe.

So conclusion #6 is still non sequitur and unjustified.

This argument doesn't prove that an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant exists, it merely follows that the "logic" that if it did exist then it would need to exist in all possible worlds including ours. But that doesn't justify conclusion #6 that concludes that an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant must then exist.

This argument fails to establish the existence of an Omnipresent Jolly Green Giant.

And that's even letting the objections to #4 SLIDE!

We could even make it a Jolly Invisible Giant to explain why we can't use #4 to rule it out, and we STILL wouldn't have any justification for concluding #6.

This is just bad logic period. We'd still have to stop and #5 and say, yes IF it exist then it exist. But that's hardly proof that it exists.