Consciousness and ontological argument

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

What is a PROOF OF GOD’S EXISTENCE?

  1. PROOF is the presentation of something doubtless and axiomatic to the reason. Or it is conclusion made from such a premise according to certain incontestable rules.
    But the sole self-evidence which is presented to me directly is me myself.
    And who is me myself? – I’m he, who is at one’s place; he, who has himself before him; he, who knows himself. In short, I am reflection as such. Or, in other words, I am consciousness.
    (In Russian consciousness is literally “co-knowledge”, that is the same “I know me” immediately and without any mediums).
    So, consciousness, or I-reflection, or, at last, simply me myself, is the sole proof of anything.
    And the only irrefutable rule of conclusion is the rule of my thinking.
    [Formal logic isn’t such a rule. Therefore its proofs have a rather low fidelity attitude to the reality. This is evident if only from the fact that in its frames it is impossible to prove its proper foundation – whereas reality is always self-based…]

  2. EXISTENCE is appearance (presentation) of properties (qualities).
    As well as the proof, it is an attitude (relation) because appearance is, indeed, relation.
    Relation doesn’t “show” (manifest, display, develop, exhibit) something ostensibly existing apart from it: some “essence”. For there is no any “latent”, “non-displayed” “essence” apart from relation, there is no any “thing-in-itself”.
    Relation is existence itself. And self-evidence is existence which cannot be denied. I am such relation and such existence, because I cannot deny only me myself, only my own existence – otherwise the question “who denies?” arises.

  3. GOD is the basis of any existence.
    But it cannot be any “basis” which would be different from existence as such – otherwise such a “basis” doesn’t exist. So, God is existence itself. He is being “in general”, existence as such.
    At the same time it is possible to show that existence of every separate individual thing is a result of God’s reflection: so to say, His “cogitative (ideational) form”. The fractal theory shows us how it can be really, when an iterated function creates variety.
    In other words, God is uniform, but He exists via variety of forms.

    On the other hand, the reflection of my own “I” exists in the individual form of my person.
    But as self-relation, achieving in an act of self-scrutiny or of yoga’s concentration, it doesn’t connect with any properties of my concrete person and it is relation in pure form, that is – God.

    Conclusion.

    Proof, existence, and God coincide in I-reflection.
    And so far as this reflection is an immutable and irrefutable fact, then existence of God is proved.

2

however, if that reflection is not an immutable irrefutable act, the existance of god is not proven.

3

alas, your argument suffers from a similar circle as descartes’…

p1 I exist

p2 God is existence itself.

c1 god exists (restatement of p2)

but there is a cutting humor in the conclusion (I am not sure if it was intended)…

p1 “I am I-reflection”
c1 “Proof, existence, and God coincide in I-reflection.
And so far as this reflection is an immutable and irrefutable fact, then existence of God is proved.”

in other words “I (via I-reflection) am god”

speaking of Russian consciousness…

shestov.by.ru/

berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1938_439.html

“…Indeed, everything connected with this theme about a necessarily compelling truth is bound up with the setting in opposition of Jerusalem and Athens, the setting of Abraham and Job in opposition to Socrates and Aristotle. When they attempted to unite reason, as developed by Greek philosophy, together with revelation, there occurred then an apostacising and stepping-away from faith, and theology has always done this. The God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, is replaced by the God of the theologians and the philosophers. Philo was the first betrayer. God was subordinated to reason, to necessity, to commonly-held truths. Therein perished Abraham, the hero of faith. L. Shestov was very close to Luther, to the Lutheran theme of salvation by faith alone. The deliverance of man cannot come from man himself, but only from God. God – is the Deliverer. Deliverance occurs not by intellect, not by morals, not by human activity, but by faith. Faith signifies the miraculous for the necessary truths of reason. The heights bestir themselves from their places. Faith demands the irrational. The Apostle Paul also says this. Faith asserts a conflict, a paradox, as Kierkegaard loves to say. L. Shestov with great radicalism gave expression authentically to the existential and eternal problem. The paradoxicality of thought, the irony, to which L. Shestov constantly recoursed in his manner to write, prevented its comprehension. Sometimes they have understood it, but indeed backwards. This occurred, for example, with such a remarkable thinker as Unamuno, who much sympathised with L. Shestov. …”

shestov.narod.ru/home.html

-Imp

4

If that reflection is not irrefutable fact, then you don’t exist, because such reflection is the fact of your existence (this is the sole thing that verify your existence for your). And who doubts in it in such a case?

5

Existence is only word until its reality is not proved via the fact of my own presence. And such a fact is the fact of my reflection. Where is the humor here? Or you assume that existence is a self-obvious thing? What sense this word has without of fact of your own existence?

6

existence is an obvious thing… self? not really…

(un)intended megalomania is humorous…

the existence of god is still questionable…

-Imp

7

Impenitent Posted:

Non-argued insight is humorous no less.
Existence is obvious thing and self - not really? But you didn’t answer “what sense this word has without of fact of your own existence?”

8

I agree with the humean view of self…

-Imp

9

Hume’s “self” is rather individual person then real "self’’ which is knowledge “I am” simply. “Self” is reflection as such, abstracted of any specificity of a person.
And you have not answer “what sense this word has without of fact of your own existence?” :smiley:

10

no, there is no “self” for hume, just a bundle of experiences…

existence may occur, but “facts” certainly do not…

-Imp

11

So if you and i both had the exact same experiances, we would be the same people? or not?.. What if we were identical too, id still say your ‘‘you’’ and not me.

12

we couldn’t have the same experiences… you have your senses, I have mine…

-Imp

13

My 20 minutes of thought:

There can be no proof of existence (“I exist”) that does not rely on some underlying assumption of existence. “You” and “I” are distinct entities under all circumstances, regardless of whether or not a hypothetical experiment subjects us to exactly the same set of experiences. What makes us unique is our brain chemistry. The only way to share another’s experiences and viewpoints perfectly is to share their brain chemistry and molecular design down to the last sub-atomic particle (or beyond if you believe in waves or strings, etc.)

“Self”, as in “yourself” or “myself” represents an awareness of your physical person and of all the thoughts and feelings that you perceive to belong exclusively to you. The “self” can never be fully recognized, as only through death is it possible to discern everything that belongs to the self and the self alone, i.e. when you die, whatever is missing belongs to the self. Unfortunately, this is an impossible observation to make, unless of course you believe in reincarnation or an afterlife, neither of which are very scientific or rational concepts.

I think the notion that any proof of the existence of “God” or “god” or “gods” can be derived from a thought experiment is ludicrous. DesCartes and Anselm, among others, put forth flawed arguments that they lacked the courage or the insight to challenge. For any definition of God that involves God being all-powerful, all-knowing, creator of all things, the ultimate force in the universe, whatever, the self (which cannot be fully recognized in life) is an incomplete tool with which to ferret out the existence of said God. For, if God could be realized through a reflection of the self, then God would be imperfect. If God cannot be identified in a manner that does not require underlying assumptions, then God’s existence can never be definitively proven beyond the realm of subjectivity. Such is the case with a grasshopper, as well as with the self. The only existence that can be proven or disproven for these concepts is the one in which they conform to the preconceived notions of the observer.

“I think, therefore I am.”
“I think I see a grasshopper, therefore it exists.”
“I think of God, therefore he exists.”

Whether or not the grasshopper really exists is a question that must be answered by each observer individually. If the grasshopper is only in your mind, then to someone else, it may not really exist. Similarly, if your notion of “self” is not rationally bound to observation, then you may view yourself as being invulnerable to the crushing effects of a huge boulder falling onto your head. Suppose you test this hypothesis. In the event that your “self” does not exist in the capacity that you believed it to, then your hypothesis will likely remain unproven. If in fact you were able to survive, for example in the afterlife, no one still alive would know this and they would consider that your view of your self was wrong. You would know differently, however you would (so far as we can tell) be unable to communicate this information to anyone else. In the event that you do not continue into an afterlife, then you are not there to witness the incorrectness of your estimation of your self, nor can anyone still living test to see whether or not you are in fact still alive in an afterlife. So no definitive proof is possible except to the self alone, which may or may not continue to exist in order to appreciate this proof.

Now, if you should happened to have physically survived the crushing blow of this boulder, then your view of your self would be shown to be justified. Such is the nature of the notion of whether or not God exists; in all the arguments about God’s existence that do not actually involve any measurable property of the physical world, or even a redefinition of physical properties, there really can be no logical veracity.

DesCartes’ argument, essentially:

“What I think of as God would have to exist, so God must exist.”
“God exists.”

or,

“God is all-perfect.”
“Existence is a perfection.”
“God exists.”

Anselm’s argument was similar.

“Something that exists is greater than something that doesn’t exist.”
“I can’t think of anything greater than God.”
"God must exist.

There are so many flaws in these arguments that it makes me wonder why people have paid so much attention to them over time. Now, I can come closer to accepting the following:

“A being more perfect than any other must exist.”
“God must be this being, as God is that which is most perfect.”

Note, however, that neither this argument or any other argument manages to or even attempts to define what perfection represents, or even clearly what “existence” is meant to represent. Surely, the idea of God exists. But does a separate entity exist, independent of our ideas of him/her? Of this, there is no proof.

14

P1) God is a being in posession of all perfections.
P2) If God did not exist he would be lacking one key perfection namely Existence.

Conclusion) Good Exists.

We can grant P(remace)1 because God by defenition must be all perfect. The problem occurs in P2 because, as first pointed out by Kant, Existence is not a type of perfection but rather a pre-requisite to perfection.

The irritating logic of this argument can be displayed in a parallel arguments.

God is totaly amazing being.

If God existed and created the universe that’d be pretty impressive.

If God didn’t exist and created the universe that’d be even more impressive.

Therefore to be totally amazing (in possession of all perfections) God must not exist.

Equally illogical, but just more blatent.

15

Very well done. I think you put it better than me :slight_smile:

I’ve never fully understood why the notion of “God” must include that “God” is all-perfect. It seems like such an implausible leap in every case.

I don’t know what the sun is, but it is good. It must be an all-perfect supreme being.

I don’t know what lightning is, but it is awesome. It must come from an all-powerful supreme being.

I don’t know what tartar sauce is, but it is good. It must be an omnipotent, all-knowning being.

I don’t know what created the universe. It must have been God.

The idea of God is a tool for the intellectually defeatist, I think. No matter how much progress we make in defining the phenomena that mystify us, no matter how much we dispel old and incomplete notions that once seemed immovable, the theists are always right there ready and waiting to throw God onto the end of whatever the argument happens to be that we haven’t quite solved yet. I find it annoying because they are not willing to exhaust all human reasoning before jumping to a conclusion that is entirely unreasonable. It’s just counterproductive to mankind’s efforts to understand himself and the universe he lives in.

16

Yuxia/El Nuncio,

Is not ‘God’ a name given to the principle that makes the world cohere, thus allowing a commodification -that is an exchange value- of that principle within the very systems of description it ensures, that is ‘reality’? Does it really surprise you that ‘proofs’ of God are circular, even though the referent lies outside the system that seeks this proof? Is it not a bit like sentences attempting to prove the existence of syntax? The inability to do so does not nullify its ‘existence’ per se, but only its existence as proved as a referent. Is not the object ‘God’ different than all other objects? It is a meta-object.

Dunamis

17

Interesting. But no, the object “God” is not different from all other objects, at least so far as the object “God” has no certain definition whatsoever. It is careless to assume that everyone shares your definition for what “God” is. And your point about proofs of God being circular is exactly the type of argument I was trying to make in the Prove Your Belief System thread (were you in that one?) wherein the notion of the existence of anything outside the system that seeks its proof is an absurd notion, i.e. we cannot and shall never know God if God truly lies completely outside of our “reality.” The same is true for any sort of “truth”-- there can be no absolute knowledge of anything outside the system that seeks that knowledge. The attainable absolutism of any knowledge is entirely dependent upon the system in which that knowledge exists; we are biological machines that exist in a world that we are able to perceive only as it is reflected by our biological processes. To attempt to reason outside of that is pointless. Thus, to attempt to reason out a God that has no connection to the world in which we live is also pointless, as you begin and end with nothing whatsoever. The term “God” is useful only as a point of demarcation at which knowledge discernable by our biological processes ceases to exist. For that, I care nothing, as it cannot and shall not ever touch me.

18

El Nuncio,

May I suggest that it was not careless for me to presume a definition of God, for I was proposing one in the form of a question, not presuming one. And no, I was not in the said thread.

Your thought: “The same is true for any sort of “truth”-- there can be no absolute knowledge of anything outside the system that seeks that knowledge.” , misses my essential point. The impossibility of proving God does not lie in the boundary between a system of knowledge and the things to which it refers, -although that too is problematic. The impossibility of proving God, albeit under my definition, is that God is the principle that organizes the system of knowledge itself, and as such cannot be proven within that system. It is a limitation of a different order. This definition I do not presume, but do propose as a working definition that subsumes all others. You of course are free to define God how you wish, and then disable the proof of his/her/its existence how you see fit.

Dunamis

19

Fair enough.

Please forgive my clumsiness; I’m trying to understand:

Is that not simply because you choose to define God in such a manner? Is this necessary? Is there a logical compulsion for this definition? I don’t understand how you come to conclude that there is an organizing principle behind our system of knowledge, and that it is God, which cannot be proven by that system-- that was my original point. It is illogical, at least to me, that anything unknowable can be so known as to be definitively unknowable! It seems to me that this definition exists to accomodate your notion of God, not that your notion of God exists to fulfill the need for an organizing principle behind a system of knowledge. It sounds like you’re beginning with God and trying to work backwards. Are you not?

20

El Nuncio,

I am not attempting a proof of God, but rather describing the likely limitations of such a proof. For instance your complaint:

“Note, however, that neither this argument or any other argument manages to or even attempts to define what perfection represents, or even clearly what “existence” is meant to represent. Surely, the idea of God exists. But does a separate entity exist, independent of our ideas of him/her? Of this, there is no proof.”

looses much of its footing if you realize that for both Anselm and Descartes the coherence of the world is unimaginable without God -despite the suspensions of belief in their thought-experiments. “Existence” is not an attribute which then is applied to God, as much as they would like to assess it as such, but something that is inherent and unthinkable without God. This is the same in the case of perfection. It is not that “God” exists to the degree that we can percieve him/it, or even prove him/it, but as Tommasso Campanella resolved, we exist to the degree that we percieve God, to the degree that we “toticipate” in the real. As Campanella declared with force, decades before Descartes, “cognoscere est esse”, “to know is to be”.

This is largely a Neo-platonic resolution of the problem, a philosophical motion that both Descartes and Anselm would repel, but nonetheless a perspective that I propose conditions all questions as to the proof of God. Coherence is subsumed in all acts of communication/consciousness. As you suggest, one begins with it. God, whether consciously or unconsciously so defined, stands in for such coherence, and such approximations of that universality through assignable attributes fail under the order of his/her/its universality. The coherence can examine itself, but cannot prove itself. As Shelley proclaimed of the god Apollo, and therefore of the rational mind,

“I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself and knows itself divine.”

Whether this coherence is God though, or attributable to some biological theory or psychological reflection is another matter. The act of coherence is its own proof. I only suggest that it is this coherence which limits proofs of God and makes God an “object” different than others.

Dunamis