A twist on the ontological argument proving the existence of God

St. Anselm, Archbishop of Cantebury (1033-1109), is the originator of the ontological argument. This argument is laid out in his written work called Proslogium which can be download in PDF form here:

Proslogium

"[Even a] fool, when he hears of … a being than which nothing greater can be conceived … understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding.… And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.… Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality."

The passage is a little difficult to unravel. Here is a more sequenced version of the argument:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

Here is my twist on this argument. Maybe not as good but maybe another way to come to the same conclusion:

1. God is word that represents every possible thought and experience imaginable.
2. There are no other words in our dictionary containing more meaning than the word God.
3. Just like our consciousness transcends our body, God's consciousness transcends the Universe.
4. Consciousness exist, experiences of reality exist, therefore, God exists because there's no other word big enough to contain all the information.

However, a single Universe is not enough. Consider the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics where we have a infinite number of Universe in the multi-verse.

Many-worlds Interpretation

Multiverse

With the Multiverse every possible quantum state is realized. In one Universe a person marries Sally. In another Universe the same person marries Sue. Every possibility is mapped out in complete realization so the Multiverse is absolutely complete at a higher dimension. An omnipotent God would then be the consciousness experiencing the Multiverse in its entirety. This Multiverse version of God's consciousness is the word containing the most information possible in its definition.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Many years ago I worked out this summary of his argument;
1; There must be a Greatest Conceivable Entity (GCE).
2; Obviously we can imagine a GCE (we did that in the first stage), which settles the existence of an imaginary GCE.
3; But what is real is greater than what is imaginary, so a real GCE must be greater than an imaginary GCE.
4; Therefore there must be a real GCE.

The ontological argument rests on something being "conceivable", so trying to understand whether it works will "do your head in", as they say in London.
I've always thought that the big flaw from the viewpoint of Biblical theism is that it doesn't actually prove enough to be useful.

a reply to: dfnj2015

God is said to be 'ALL knowing'.

Look right now to what is knowing (aware of) these words.
Notice that the knowing presence never actually apears to be seen..... could anything appear outside the knowing space?

All that appears is passing... it comes and goes......... What does not pass is the aware space in which the appearance comes and goes in.

The aware space often gets overlooked........ because it doesn't appear to be some thing.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: dfnj2015

God is said to be 'ALL knowing'.

Look right now to what is knowing (aware of) these words.
Notice that the knowing presence never actually apears to be seen..... could anything appear outside the knowing space?

All that appears is passing... it comes and goes......... What does not pass is the aware space in which the appearance comes and goes in.

The aware space often gets overlooked........ because it doesn't appear to be some thing.

Every possible thought that can occur in mind-space was represent in the definition of God I presented.

a reply to: dfnj2015

God is the space that thought appears in.

The everpresent aware space.

Thought comes and thought goes..... but God is never not here.

The problem I have with the ontological argument is that something conceived--and reasoning based upon the conception--cannot make it real for everyone.

This is no different from a person that is experiencing an hallucination: they see, hear, and feel (among other senses) things they perceive. It is 100% real to them in their hallucinative state.

Exactly as St. Anselm wrote, the hallucinating person "conceived to exist in reality" the hallucination.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: dfnj2015

Many years ago I worked out this summary of his argument;
1; There must be a Greatest Conceivable Entity (GCE).
2; Obviously we can imagine a GCE (we did that in the first stage), which settles the existence of an imaginary GCE.
3; But what is real is greater than what is imaginary, so a real GCE must be greater than an imaginary GCE.
4; Therefore there must be a real GCE.

The ontological argument rests on something being "conceivable", so trying to understand whether it works will "do your head in", as they say in London.
I've always thought that the big flaw from the viewpoint of Biblical theism is that it doesn't actually prove enough to be useful.

So suppose I replace "Entity" with "Cat." The syllogism works just as well. Therefore, there must a Greatest Conceivable Cat. So, the Egyptians were right and God is a Cat?

a reply to: Elcabong
Only if you are actually defining God as "greatest conceivable cat". The definition is Anselm's starting point.
Without that definition, all you are proving is that there is a greatest conceivable cat, and that result is even less useful than Anselm's version.

a reply to: Elcabong

is the greatest conceivable dog - greater than the greatest concevable cat ?

Its said that our senses are infallible and not prone to error because they make no judgements or interpretations. However our senses have known limits. Its our mind that makes judgements based on the limits of our senses. If our senses cannot fathom any connections between us and our universe, our mind will by deduction, recognise each one of us as separate entities.

So trying to deduce the existence of God without first contemplating if we are indeed separate from the reality we sense, makes any deduction superficial. We now know from quantum entanglement that everything is connected. That separation only exist in our ego-mind.

So before we can contemplate God we first need overcome an ego-mind that wants to categorise everything as being either part or separate from our own being. Only after that can we really contemplate if I and the Father are one (does that ring a bell!).

a reply to: ignorant_ape

The Greatest Conceivable dog gives the Greatest Conceivable chase to the Greatest Conceivable Cat. Therefore, they both must be real.

a reply to: Elcabong

my serious reply to people who use this " conceivable " wordgame when arguing for the existance of a " god "

build objects from the conveivable " designs " of escher

concievable is not a synonym for real

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Elcabong
Only if you are actually defining God as "greatest conceivable cat". The definition is Anselm's starting point.
Without that definition, all you are proving is that there is a greatest conceivable cat, and that result is even less useful than Anselm's version.

So what's wrong with defining God that way and proving that there is a Greatest Conceivable Cat (using the ontological arguments given, of course)? Lots of societies believe in animal gods. I just gave the ancient Egyptians as one example, but how about Cow/bull gods (Hindu religion I think, but forgive me if I'm mistaken), monkey gods, elephants, etc.

So, just plug that animal into the syllogism and you prove that religion is right and Christianity is wrong.

Therefore, for those religions, the Greatest Conceivable Cat, Bull, Monkey, Elephant, or what have you is real. That is their God, and they think that Christianity is wrong. So the syllogism can confirm their belief unless Christians are willing to concede that maybe God really is a Cat, Bull, Monkey, Elephant, or what have you.

a reply to: Elcabong

Sorry for the multiple posts. The page flaked out for a minute and seemed to now be working. Admin, can you help me delete the multiple posts please?

a reply to: Elcabong
If you want to convince unbelievers using that argument, I won't try to discourage you. I'll just let you get on with it.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The unbelievers are not the ones who need the convincing. I'm all for anyone proving the existence of God to either believers or unbelievers. But, the proof should be able to stand on its own whether you're a believer or not. After all, you do want to use this to convert unbelievers, right?

What I am trying to demonstrate is that this argument is fallacious and doesn't prove anything. Everyone, whether a believer or not, should reject fallacious reasoning. If someone is a Christian, they should not accept a "proof" that also proves monkey and elephant gods, it should only prove the Christian god of the Bible.

Though the Bible does say that "...thou shalt not have any other gods before me," so that could be an argument that it's ok to prove monkey and elephant gods, as long as you don't put them before the Christian God. If that's your argument, then you might have something there!

There are many other ways to show the fallacy of this argument, but I thought this way might illustrate it easier and maybe even make spotting the fallacies a little more interesting. Wouldn't you agree?