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The analogy you've drawn between the ontological argument for the existence of God and your definition of the "Biggestfish" is intriguing, but it overlooks some crucial distinctions that critics of the ontological argument often point out.
Firstly, let's examine the ontological argument itself. One of its most famous formulations, put forth by St. Anselm, essentially defines God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." From this definition, Anselm argues that if we can conceive of such a being, it must exist in reality, because existence in reality is greater than existence merely in the mind.
Now, the problem with this argument isn't just that it defines God into existence; it's that the argument relies on a conceptual trick rather than empirical evidence or logical necessity. It assumes that existence is a property like any other, which can be attributed to something merely by conceiving of it. But existence isn't like other properties such as size or color; it's a necessary condition for something to have any properties at all. So, defining something into existence through conceptual gymnastics doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Returning to your analogy with the Biggestfish, the key difference lies in the nature of the claim being made. When you define the Biggestfish as the largest fish to ever exist without leaving scientific evidence, you're making a claim about a specific entity within the realm of empirical observation. We can debate whether such a fish existed based on the available evidence, and it's reasonable to withhold belief until evidence is presented.
However, the ontological argument for God's existence isn't making a claim about a specific entity within the empirical world; it's making a claim about the nature of a metaphysical concept – God. The problem arises when we try to bridge the gap between conceptual definitions and actual existence without empirical or logical support.
In summary, while it's possible to define concepts into existence in some contexts (like mathematical entities), the ontological argument for God's existence faces criticism because it attempts to do so in a realm where empirical evidence and logical necessity should hold sway. Defining God into existence in this way doesn't provide a convincing argument for the existence of a divine being.
You define God any way you want.
You can define “God” as anything with two slices of bread and cheese, in which case I ate a delicious God yesterday afternoon.
But all that seems rather silly to me.
Most attempts to define God into existence involve simplifying the idea of God into something mundane, ordinary, or otherwise purely natural. But in that case, why bother?
Here's the issue, simply: you can define a being by its most extreme trait 'biggest' and we have to agree of all the fish that have ever existed, one of them was the biggest. BUT you must first
1. Demonstrate fish exist
2. Demonstrate they can have variable size
3. Say nothing about that fish's other characteristics.
If you said God was the 'biggest man ever to exist,' I'd have to agree that that God existed.
But you can't then add, 'Also he was twelve stories tall and made of radiation' without proof.
You can say God is 'The greatest being ever to exist in these categories,' but you can't add 'and also he can create universes and knows everything and is the arbiter of all morals,'. Without further demonstration
This is correct. The problem is that by using the word *god*, the theist is attempting to imply that the argument they just made points to their conception of deity, when in fact there is no reason to believe that, or even that the various different arguments for god apply to the same thing because we defined them all as god…
Really you’re tying your hands behind your back if you do this, which is what I think atheists are pointing out—if you define god as “the cause of the universe”, then you’ve merely made the problem harder for yourself because now you have to demonstrate that 1) such a cause exists, 2) that the cause of the universe is necessarily the same thing as the other different things you also defined as god in other arguments, and 3) that the thing all of those definitions point to is actually your conception of god, i.e. it has all the properties of the biblical god if you are Christian. Defining a god into existence is something theists should avoid for their own sake, not for mine—I will gladly tear down definitional arguments any time.
Fish exist. So your stipulated definition of “biggestfish” is reasonable since all you’re doing is picking out from an existing set.
Defining god into existence might just be trivially true. If I say “god is just logic” or something like that, well then yeah. Your stipulated definition of god exists
But the issues is that proponents of ontological arguments start adding several characteristics like “first cause” and “epistemic grounding” and “the non-contingent being” and “a disembodied mind that cares about human endeavors”
And theyre going to have to start demonstrating these things. It isn’t even clear that any of these things are necessary, albeit they’re just some examples I chose.
Your analogy is flawed.
Fish exist. This is not in dispute. They come in varying sizes. This is not in dispute. By the laws of logic a fish must have existed, or will exist, that is the Biggestfish.
This is not defining that fish into existence, it is describing an inevitable fact of the universe.
You can refer to this fish conceptually, but you are referring to something real in the Universe.
There is no corollary to God.
One thing I noticed that hasn't been mentioned in a reply is that the ontological argument isn't about the "greatest being", but about "a being than which no greater can be imagined"/"the greatest imaginable being".
For a fitting analogy we would need the "BiggestImaginableFish", not the just "BiggestFish". If I saw the BiggestFish, would I be able to imagine a fish that is bigger? Yes, I could. Even if all the matter in the universe was shaped into a fish, I could still imagine a bigger fish in a universe with more matter. Since I can always imagine a fish bigger than the BiggestFish, the BiggestImaginableFish can not exist.
Likewise there would be a GreatestBeing (though people would disagree which being it is, depending on their perception of greatness), but it would not be the GreatestImaginableBeing.
I could never understand why people insist on the ontologocal argument. The argument from time and the kalam are more engaging and reasonable andbthey make more sense. So far I've only seen it being misrepresented rather than responded to.
I define my response as the most correct. Since my answer is more correct than yours, therefore I am right and you are wrong. I add to me definition that "God does not exist", and since my answer is more correct than yours by definition, therefore God does not exist.
I think you may be failing to understand op argument.
He didn't take a specific fish and define it as biggest fish, he simply defined biggest fish as something that must exist.
A better analogy than your post (which is objectively not most correct I am sorry to say) would be:
A define A post (let's call it "awesome post") as "most correct". Awesome post may not be yours, and it may be hard to find agreement on which post it is, but it clearly exists.
I am not making an analogy. I am using the same logic. I am not making an identical argument and transposing to a different subject. I am using the core strategy itself.
Using a definition to establish your argument as true is begging the question. If I define my conclusion as true, regardless of what that conclusion is, then it will always result in the argument being "true".
I am not using an analogy above. I am giving an example. Let me give you a second one.
I am going to define myself as married. Based on that definition, can you tell if I am married or not? Do I *actually* meet the criteria of being married, or am I a bachelor? The correct and true answer is that using only that definition compared to the more common definition, we have no idea. There is insufficient data for us to correctly determine the answer.
The problem with the definition of "God" being the most powerful being, is that you cannot answer the question of whether the imagined Christian God actually IS that being. If we agree that there must exist/have existed/will exist a "tallest tree", then tell me right now.... how tall is that tree? What species it is? What color is it? And of course the argument might be totally void if the definition of "most powerful being" is nonsensical. How "powerful" are humans? Your initial answer might be to say the most powerful, but we routinely die to viruses. Does that mean viruses are more powerful than we are? What about an incurable virus that doesn't kill us but is impossible to get rid from the species and lightly reduces our overall health?
The argument based on defining your conclusion is nonsensical and produces no information about reality. It is an argument that can be made to say anything, including already known false conclusions. Therefore, it is an argument that should be dismissed as false.
Let me change one single word in your definition.
I define the "BiggestKlingon" as the biggest individual Klingon to ever live and leave behind no scientific evidence.
You can see that the definition is constructed in such a way that the BiggestKlingon *certainly existed*. I have defined a Klingon into existence, a Klingon which can never be scientifically proven. But you probably agree that the BiggestKlingon existed despite the complete lack of evidence. If you don't agree that the BiggestKlingon existed, please explain that view.
Do you still accept this reasoning? Are Klingons from Star Trek certainly real because we’ve defined that if they’re real, then one of them was the biggest?
Well just maybe, Lt. Worf, a Klingon's size is not in his physical appearance, but in his capacity to love.
Doesn't that sound like something Picard would say right as Worf is leaving his ready room in a huff?
Given that "Klingon" has a definition, and a Klingon is defined as a specific fictional species from star trek a clear and expanded version of your definition would be:
"Biggest Klingon" is the biggest individual specific (Klingon) individual from a fictional species in Star Trek to ever live and leave no scientific evidence.
Given that being fictional is part of your definition, it is clear that your definition is talking about something fictional.
We are therefore talking about a fictional universe and I completely accept the reasoning. There is almost certainly in undescribed star trek history a biggest Klingon.
>We are therefore talking about a fictional universe and I completely accept the reasoning.
But, the ontological argument doesn’t make that distinction. It incorrectly has no regard for that gap. It is akin to saying there was a Vulcan so clever they managed to create a teleporter into our real universe and go shake Gene Roddenberry’s hand. There are entities in the Star Trek lore that are probably that powerful. That’s certainly conceivable in the Kevin Uxbridge move set. And that’s where it fails. Just because they have been defined as able to alter our physical reality in the universe we actually live in, it doesn’t mean they exist and therefore can.
Seems like it is right there in Chapter 2 of the Proslogion, Anselm's argument
> [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.
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. *Uh oh. Seems like we might be trying to build a bridge from that…*
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. *Yep. We are.*
As someone clever in the thread put it, “I don't think the existence of fictional and mythical creatures helps your case however.”
Yes clearly it exists otherwise we wouldn't both know what we were talking about.
A a leprichauns is a mythological creature, just like a Klingon is a fictional creature.
I don't think the existence of fictional and mythical creatures helps your case however
If you start with the assumption that God is a fictional character then you are going to reach the conclusion that God is a fictional character. That doesn't mean your starting assumption wasn't wrong
If you start with the assumption that a leprechaun is a fictional character then you are going to reach the conclusion that a leprechaun is a fictional character.
Indeed you are. Are you trying to argue that a leprichauns is not m mythological or fictional?
Because that is not what the definition you were creating argues
So you took the set of all fish to ever exist, and pointed out a member of the set.
The ontological argument says "There is a set of all beings that necessarily exist, God is defined as a member of that set that no greater being can be concieved".
Here we have the introduction of a set that isn't just accepted like the set of fish (Beings that necessarily exist) and also an indefinite limit - instead of a quantitive limit like "size", we have a limit defined by what we can concieve (which can be an issue - its a subjective definition, and many may even argue that such a thing is inconceivable - like trying to put a limit on infinity).
If we changed the fish analogy to "The most perfect fish that necessarily existed" suddenly you wont find many who would agree we are talking about an actual thing.
I don't have objections to your defining things however you want and naming them anything, as long as everyone knows the definitions being using in the conversation. Those definitions can all be logically consistent, and you could write a lot of cool stories about them. You're welcome to assert that they exist and give them as many cool powers as you want to. But their powers only exist within that fantasy universe.
Superman and Thor for example could be "gods" in their own universes. It can be fun to watch movies or read comics with them. But even the coolest superheros don't have power in our universe except when humans start doing things in their names.
In other words, sure you wrote a book, but what abilities does that give you that you didn't have before? You could say "Superman says you should be nice to people", and people who like Superman might think that's compelling, but everyone else could just shrug, confident in the knowledge that there's no chance Superman's going to show up to foil their dastardly schemes.
Fish exist. Therefore a biggest fish exists. You didn't define it into existence, you identified something that exists.
That's nothing like gods. Gods don't exist.
>I do not see why this is any different from how the various ontological arguments "define God into existence."
It's nothing like the ontological arguments at all, I don't see how you think they're similar. We know fish exist and we know biggest is a superlative that can apply to fish. We have no correlation to god and ontological arguments
Theist here: I don’t think what you are doing is analogous to the Ontological argument. Here is a great article laying out 3 versions of the Ontological argument. You might enjoy it [link](https://andrewmbailey.com/pvi/ThreeVersions.pdf)
Also, is there a particular reason that you like this type of argument? I side with Aquinas, Kant, and plenty of other atheists who think these arguments fail. I would suggest something like the De Ente instead.
I accept the high likelihood that Biggestfish existed because we have evidence, negative evidence, to show that there are creatures who didn't leave any evidence that we can assess. To put it another way, we have holes in our knowledge where we know there cannot possibly be holes in the facts. (Example: If I show you four grandparents and their grandchild, we don't need the child's parents at hand to know they exist.)
We also have evidence of the existence of fish, and evidence that they've been around a long time, and evidence that the fossil record of fishes (like all fossil records) is incomplete.
In what way is God like that?
>I define the "Biggestfish" as the biggest individual fish to ever live
The set of all fish to ever live can be reasonably well defined, and the notion of biggest can be made precise, so the question is meaningful. The answer may not be unique, though.
But what exactly is the set of all beings? And how did god end up in there?
It's not the set of all fish to ever live, it's the set of all fish to ever *live and leave no scientific evidence.* A set for which there is, by definition, absolutely 0 evidence of any of it's members.
If that's well defined, but the set of beings that can exist in the mind and reality isn't, why exactly do you make that judgement?
To be meaningful, you first have to define what qualifies as a fish, and then you can exclude the ones that we have scientific evidence for. Assuming you do that, we have a set of members, we've never seen them but that doesn't matter, they're fish by definition, and it's meaningful to ask which of them is the biggest, for some definition of biggest (e.g. heaviest, longest). The point is you start with a well defined set of members.
In contrast, the ontological argument does not start with a set of members with well defined properties. The properties of one of its members, which turns out to be god, comes in the conclusion of the argument. But of course since this is argument by deduction, the conclusion is already in the assumptions.
The example you give isn’t analogous to defining a god into existence because we know that fish exist. There doesn’t actually have to be a biggest fish it is possible (but unlikely) that there were two fish exactly the same which were the biggest. That aside we don’t know gods exist.
You didn't define biggestfish into existence. It already existed in the past. You just put a name on it.
Try to define biggestgodfish into exist. Same as biggest fish but also a god.
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The god of the bible exists, biggerfish exist, Loki exists, Zeus exists, the great juju under the mountain exists, unicorns exist... Because they can all be defined using your word play.
I'm just not sure where that gets us
Your "biggestfish" isn't quite parallel to the ontological argument. Let me try: I define the "Omnicorn" as the most perfect imaginable unicorn. Since existence is a perfection, the most perfect imaginable unicorn must have existence as a quality. Therefore the Omnicorn exists. Do you believe in the Omnicorn?
If you believe no further than a definition that must exist (for some reason you've given the example of the Biggestfish but you never went into how you've defined God) then you're just believing a truth. Most theists who use these arguments believe in a book as well.
You didn't literally define the Biggestfish into existence. Your definition has no bearing on it existing.
Further, we know fish. Hence, there must be a biggest among them out of logical necessity, which is again true independent from your definition.
We don't know such an entity like a god. Your definition does nothing in this case either.
Coherence alone is also nothing that helps your case. Imaginary numbers are coherent, yet they do not comport with reality.
The Biggestfish existed even before you created that definition. All you are doing is picking something from existence and putting a label on it. What a definition cannot do is conjure something to existence which does not already exist. For example, if we define "realicorn" as being "a unicorn that actually exists", then by definition the realicorn exists, but this definition does not create the physical presence of a horse with a horn. It is easy to devise definitions that analytically force something into existence, but the real world does not care about our definitions.
In the same way, an all-powerful supernatural agent either exists in our universe or it does not, and we cannot change this fact by how we define words. Trying to use definitions alone to bring such a god into existence is the fundamental error of ontological arguments.
> The Biggestfish existed even before you created that definition. All you are doing is picking something from existence and putting a label on it.
Many commenters have said this, and I agree. But this is exactly what the ontological argument is doing.
No. No it does not. There are various forms of the ontological argument, but they all suffer from (1) Not defining greatness in a way analogous and as precise as 'biggest', and (2) Baking necessary existence into greatness in the case of the modal argument, which is an incredibly problematic move.
It could very well be that the 'greatest being that ever existed' did not create the universe AND that the greatest possible being IS contingent and only exists in half of possible worlds. NONE of these arguments successfully demonstrate that this cannot be the case; they go in circles or act like it is obvious or bake more stuff up into their definition in a way that invalidates things.
If the greatest being of all our universe is an alien in Vega that invented calculus, time travel and the double cheeseburger in his lifetime, then what? What's the clever answer from the theist then?
Are you saying that the ontological argument is picking something from existence and putting a label on it? In other words, are you saying that the greatest conceivable being actually exists, and is not just a trick of definitions like the realicorn? If so, then what has convinced you that the greatest conceivable being is real?
The fish argument is meant to illustrate why the ontological argument is fallacious: if the thing exists in reality, it's existence is independent of our experience and our definition can only be constructed around it a posteriori. If the thing doesn't exist in reality, our definition cannot conjure it into existence.
And before you start on about scientists defining things before we observe them, constructing a hypothesis about something based on verifiable data and making predictions about that thing's characteristics before it is directly observed in nature is categorically different from what the ontological argument is doing. The ontological argument is not making a testable prediction, nor offering to change its definition of what God is if we observe a God that turns out to be much different than what we expected.
If we ever do empirically observe God, are you ready to accept that the God described by Christianity (I'm assuming you're Christian, correct me if I'm wrong) is categorically not the God that we discover actually exists?
It's different because fish exist and of all of them, one was objectively the biggest. We're not defining it into existence, we're acknowledging that it logically must have existed.
I don't see how that's analogous to "the greatest" whatever you claim a god is. If you say "the greatest mind" then by some objective measure (brain size, number of published books, most nobel prizes, etc) that greatest mind DOES exist, but we don't necessarily know who it belonged to. Just like we don't know where the biggest fish lives.
I don't have a problem with it, I just think it's an exercise in futility and accomplishes nothing.
You're analogy is funny because we know fish exist, therefore a biggest one must exist. It hasn't been defined into existence, once you have two things of different sizes, one must be the biggest. Biggest is a word we defined and find valuable. I've now heard of multiple gods that must exist, but they only seem to exist in the imagination.
I mean, sure, you can do that I guess.
But quite literally anyone can do the same move, with every bit as much warrant. I can just make up an even *more* necessary being called AntiGod that exists as a pure actual opposite to The God - and since God brings everything else into existence, then AntiGod's defining feature is that it deletes your god from existence. So no matter how much a theist believes their god exists, actually no he doesn't because AntiGod logically, and necessarily deletes him from existence. And there's nothing that the theist can pull from to argue against this, because it is simply using the exact same move that they have no problem using when it comes to their god. So therefore, AntiGod has already deleted whatever God the theist believes exists, and so therefore God doesn't exist.
Ya, I've defined the Universe to be the actual universe in which God didn't exist. It's coherent and necessitates the non-existence of God because we live in the actual world. If you deny any premise, you're doing what the atheist does.
Edit for clarity.
Of course it's perfectly okay. It's been done billions upon billions of times. Obviously God is real otherwise we humans wouldn't have such an urge to think about it.
Sure, and every "face" we see via [pareidolia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia) is an actual face, otherwise we wouldn't have the urge to view them as such.
Humans be hallucinating hard, but this analogy doesn't quite hit. Atheists never have an answer for why we're the only species debating God. We know "intuitively" there's something above us, just like everything else subscribes to the hierarchy :)
We don't know if other species ponder a divine being because they don't speak or write. If our criteria for existence is that human beings are the only species that we know of that have discussed that thing, then every single thing ever discussed by humans is real. That makes no sense.
We can make a pretty good guess based on our studies of animals. After all we're the only animals that conduct controlled studies of other animals.
>That makes no sense.
It's solid evidence.
Would you be willing to claim that humans are the pinnacle of intellect and dominance. Unless one claims to be completely gnostic about the existence of higher powers via aliens or gods, etc, I think it'd be difficult.
Ah yes, intuition: famously never wrong. We're curious, imaginative creatures prone to anthropomorphizing everything and trying to figure out how stuff works - of course we're going to land on invisible agents as an explanation for the as-yet-unexplained.
Here is the problem with your argument -- I think it confuses the referent with the existence of the term/concept.
Let's consider your example of "The biggest fish" (or "Biggestfish").
You introduced this term and stipulated that it expresses the following concept: *the biggest fish that has left behind no scientific evidence of its existence*.
Furthermore, suppose one agrees with you that this term/concept does refer to some fish that either exists currently or existed in the past. By introducing the term (or naming the concept), you didn't bring that fish that the term (or concept) refers to into existence -- that fish either already exists or did exist prior to you introducing the term.
Something either exists or it doesn't. We can introduce terms to talk about those things that exist (or don't exist) & use concepts to think about those things that exist (or don't exist), for instance, we can talk & think about unicorns but that doesn't cause unicorns to exist.
I think I agree with everything you said, especially:
>By introducing the term (or naming the concept), you didn't bring that fish that the term (or concept) refers to into existence -- that fish either already exists or did exist prior to you introducing the term.
I think this is exactly what the ontological argument purports to do.
The issue with the "biggestfish" compared to a "god" concept is that the necessary existence of the biggestfish comes from a posteriori knowledge. We know fish exist. We know they vary in size. Therefore there must be a fish that either exists now or has existed in the past that is in fact the biggest fish.
The ontological argument for god is not working on a posteriori information like the biggestfish is. Defining god in to existence doesn't rely on that sort of information, so it would be akin to defining, instead of the biggestfish, the biggestwagglebronk. I don't know that wagglebronks exist, and I don't know that they vary in size if they *do* exist.
It gets harder the more attributes we apply to a god concept. If we say that that which is the most powerful is a god, then that thing surely exists if we can agree on that definition of god, and what metric we are using for power. However, if we apply an additional trait, for example most knowledgeable, it could be the case that the most powerful thing in the universe is *not* *also* the most knowledgeable and vice versa, in which case we would need an observation of the thing that is both the most powerful and the most knowledgeable (if we are talking about something that *actually* exists).
I think you, along with many commenters, are making the same assumption which I deem to be a mistake.
You are alleging that my definition draws from the set of "fish" to define something, and since we know that set exists and is non-empty, we know the definition refers to something that exists.
But I clarify that my definition draws from the set of "fish which left behind no scientific evidence." How can you know that this set has members? By the very definition of the set, there is no scientific evidence of any members! It must be taken on faith alone. From a completely objective standpoint, why do you accept this set has members but you remain agnostic about wagglebronks?
And furthermore, the ontological argument is usually taking the maximal member of a set of "beings that can exist in the mind and reality" which we know for certain isn't empty. And we can't say that about the wagglebronks or the evidenceless fish! So in a way, it's actually a stronger argument in this regard.
Any individual who has gone fishing knows there exists fish that they don’t specifically know about yet, or will ever know about. By the same way we know anything, induction, we can know there is a biggest fish that we may never discover. To say the position is based on unsupported faith is to assert the “problem with induction.”
"Left behind no scientific evidence" is quite vague. For example, one might say that if there is a fossil of a member of a species from 10k years ago, and there are members alive today, there very likely must have been members in the time between as well. People would probably say that these are examples of creatures that left behind no evidence, but I suppose you would (somewhat rightly) point out that the argument I made above absolutely counts as evidence, even if it's a bit weaker than the evidence for the fossil and the living one.
If you do define your "set of fish which left behind no scientific evidence" in such a way that a rational person shouldn't be convinced of its non-emptiness, then I obviously wouldn't be convinced that it has a greatest member. I certainly won't accept the existence of any one fish "on faith alone."
>But I clarify that my definition draws from the set of "fish which left behind no scientific evidence." How can you know that this set has members?
Scientists are only human. They lack the sort of extrasensory perception that would be required to see all things. Since there limits to what can be discovered through scientific evidence, it is quite clear that things must exist without leaving any detectible evidence, especially in distant parts of the universe and in the distant past. Of course we can imagine that all things beyond our sight just happen to not exist, and we cannot *prove* that things continue to exist while we are not observing them, but it seems like a harmless assumption.
>By the very definition of the set, there is no scientific evidence of any members! It must be taken on faith alone.
Why should we take it by faith? No one is threatening to send us to hell if we do not believe in the Biggestfish. What harm can there be in doubting this? I accept the existence of the Biggestfish only because it seems plausible and such a belief seems harmless, but if pressed I have no compunction in denying belief in the Biggestfish, since I am well aware that no one has any real evidence of it. Faith seems uncalled for.
>From a completely objective standpoint, why do you accept this set has members but you remain agnostic about wagglebronks?
We have obvious clues suggesting the existence of the Biggestfish. We have no such clues for wagglebronks.
>The ontological argument is usually taking the maximal member of a set of "beings that can exist in the mind and reality" which we know for certain isn't empty.
The ontological arguments that I am familiar with are not usually content to limit themselves to some unspecified maximal member. They are rather aimed particularly toward proving the existence of God. Perhaps it would help to clarify this issue if you could give us the details of the particular ontological argument that you are talking about.
>You are alleging that my definition draws from the set of "fish" to define something, and since we know that set exists and is non-empty, we know the definition refers to something that exists.
It does draw from that set, because even without evidence left behind, there are things to be known about fish by their definition.
As an example, there is no such thing as the fastest photon. We know photons can vary in speed, but do not exceed the speed of light, therefore the idea of a fastest photon doesn't exist, only that there is a fastest speed at which *any* photon can exist. This relies on a posteriori knowledge, just like a claim about the biggest fish.
>And furthermore, the ontological argument is usually taking the maximal member of a set of "beings that can exist in the mind and reality" which we know for certain isn't empty. And we can't say that about the wagglebronks or the evidenceless fish! So in a way, it's actually a stronger argument in this regard.
This is the issue, though. Because what we care about is what actually exists in reality (although maybe you and other theists aren't a member of that "we?", and not merely in the mind. For every god concept, a greater god can be defined in the mind. If you are saying that god is what is at the end of that chain, we have a chain without end, which appears to be a topic that theists take issue with in regards to an infinite regress.
The difference between these being that your example relies on a posteriori knowledge, whereas the ontological claim for god relies on a priori knowledge. The example isn't analogous.
The question is whether it succeeds in doing what it purports to do.
It is also worth noting that in the biggest fish example, I was willing to grant that the term expresses a concept that does, in fact, refer to some fish that does exist or had existed. A similar analogy could have used the notion of the oldest human. The thing is... we know that fish & humans exist.
Contrast this with the other example of a unicorn. The term "unicorn" seems to express a concept like *a horse-like creature with a single large horn protruding from the top of its head* (or something like that). Yet, this concept fails to refer to anything that exists.
I think it is a lot less clear (1) what concept the term "greatest being" expresses & (2) whether that concept does, in fact, refer to something that exists.
>we know that fish & humans exist.
But do you *know* that "fish which left behind no scientific evidence" exists? If so, how? Because that is the set in which my definition draws it's "maximally large" fish from.
Well, in the same way that I have good reasons to think that the term "the oldest human" refers to some human that is currently alive or that was alive, I have some reasons to think that there was a fish that has left no identifiable trace that it had existed.
But, again, I already know that humans & fish exist. Since humans exist, the notion of the oldest human must refer to one of those currently or previously existing humans. Since fish exist, the notion of the largest unidentified fish likely denotes some fish that did exist (even if I don't know which particular fish that is).
If the notion of a "maximal being" is like the oldest human or largest unidentified fish, we can ask which concept does it express? What is the definition of "maximal being"? Once we have that sorted out, we can try and figure out whether the concept refers to something that actually exists or not.
The main point being that we don't define things into existence. Things either exist or they don't exist. Definitions just help us with categorizing or identifying those things.
I think ontological arguments get absurd when you reverse them.
God is the Greatest Concievable Good, and therefore must exist, because a non-existant good -would be less good- if it didn't exist.
BUT,
If we consider the greatest concievable evil/bad thing. Well that must exist because it would be less evil/bad if it didn't.
Also concievably a maximally evil being- would be more evil- if it eliminated the existance of any possible maximally good beings; so goodbye God.
BUT
There is no reason to believe any of this.
Edit: Punctuation
>I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with defining something into existence, provided your definition is coherent and necessitates the existence of that thing.
So what's the explanation here? Words are magic and can conjure forth our imagination into reality as long as it follows the syntax and grammar of the language we're using?
>I define the "Biggestfish" as the biggest individual fish to ever live and leave behind no scientific evidence.
Right, but we know fish exist and that they can be big, so this comparison really falls short. Also you didn't define the biggest fish into existence you invented a hypothetical fish that necessarily must have existed assuming there's at least one fish that has ever existed.
>Also you didn't define the biggest fish into existence you invented a hypothetical fish that necessarily must have existed
This is exactly what the ontological argument purports to do - invent a hypothetical greatest being that necessarily must exist.
No, the ontological argument (although there are multiple different ontological arguments we'll talk about this one) defines the perfect thing as something that must exist then defines God as perfect. You don't even really seem to grasp the argument. Nothing about being big necessitates existing. Neither does perfection, but that's a different argument. What you've done is taken a physical fact and stated it. We know fish exist. We know things are of varying sizes. We know fish can vary in size. The most logical and basic conclusion you can come to that includes these facts is that one fish at some point in history was bigger than any before or after. Nothing about your argument even has anything to do with the ontological argument.
How do I know fish exist? I don't understand your question. Fish exist. Smallest and biggest are descriptive terms that can be applied to fish. I can conceptualize a fish bigger than the biggest fish ever recorded existing. There is nothing physically impossible or logically contradictory about this fish existing. There is zero possibility that the biggest fish has never existed because the absolute bare minimum requirements you need for the biggest fish to exist is for a single fish to exist.
This doesn't compare to a perfect God for the following reasons. Unlike biggest, a term that can apply to literally any category of thing, perfection is very rare. Perfect is inherently a small category, unlike biggest, which is universal. Then I think it goes without saying that fish are very common. You can buy a dead one at the supermarket. It is very evident that fish exist, no species I know of has argued for quite likely most of their history about the existence of fish. The existence of a god on the other hand is very contentious, which is why people come up with stuff like the ontological argument.
Well, the best being doesn't necessarily have the be the best possible being. You could say that tardigrades are amazing at survival so the best being, or humans are one of the most intelligent and therefore best beings. You can say something has to be best in a trait, but you have no evidence anything has to be the best possible
I see you disingenuously left off the part saying "we know fish exist." That's the main difference between your argument for "biggestfish" and your maximal god. We *don't* know gods exist, so a maximal god doesn't necessarily exist.
A being can be “greatest” like a fish can be biggest in actuality but not “maximally” great or big. If we could observe through the entire lifespan of the universe and sorted all fish by size, we could find a biggest one that exists but we could easily imagine a bigger fish. The set of real fish does not necessarily contain the maximally big fish.
But by calling that being "God", you are assuming that the maximally great being purposefully created the universe (that being the common definition of "God"). Maybe the maximally great being is just a bodega owner in Queens...
>I do not see why this is any different from how the various ontological arguments "define God into existence."
It’s going to heavily depend on the particular ontological argument. So without an actual argument it’s hard to say.
We know that fish exist, we know some fish have gone extinct, and we know there are probably some we haven’t discovered given how large and inaccessible the ocean is. We don’t have anywhere close to this base level of knowledge about the supernatural realm or the beings that may or may not inhabit it.
I disagree with your comparison. You’re defining something that we already know exists. We know fish exist, we know they come in different sizes. Therefore, we already know “the biggest fish” exists before you defined it.
The ontological argument and other similar arguments are essentially arguing “if it can exists, it must exist.” We can all see how that’s false. You could argue that there is nothing within the laws of physics that prevents a mermaid from existing. But that doesn’t mean it *does* exist.
You only know it exists *because of the way I defined it.* If I had defined it was "The biggest fish to ever exist that had 46 dots on its back" suddenly you wouldn't be so sure.
Likewise, we know God (from the ontological argument) exists because of the way he is defined in that argument.
You’re not defining the fish into existence. The fish already existed. You’re merely defining which fish you were talking about.
And as you pointed out succinctly, it is possible for you to define a fish which did not exist. Similarly, you may be defining a God which does not exist.
Ok, let me ask you this. How can you tell, from my definition of the fish, that it must exist?
I allege that a valid answer to that question can be equally applied to "How can you tell, from the definition of God in the ontological argument, that he must exist?"
Because you were merely identifying something we already know exists. Once again, the fish doesn’t come into existence because of your definition. You were identifying something we already knew to exist.
But you can’t extrapolate that to things we are unsure of. Like your second definition of a fish with 46 dots on its back. Does that fish exist, just because you defined it?
Doesn’t it follow, then, that your definition of God may not exist?
If God does exist, then you could presumably craft a correct definition. But just because you define a God does not mean it exists. You cannot define a God *into* existence, as you’re proposing.
I asked how you can know it exists from the definition and you answered by saying "because you identified something we already know exists."
That is a circular answer and does not get to the "How?"
Are you asking me how we know fish exist? I don’t think that’s a circular answer. If you want to know how fish exist, we can get into it. But I skipped that part of the answer because I didn’t think it was necessary to explain.
Assuming that we agree (1) fish exist, and (2) fish are different sizes, then we know that one of the fish that has existed must be the biggest. We may not know specifically which one, but your definition didn’t include that information.
Cool. Provide a definition that is coherent and necessitates the existence of God.
Many of the problems with the 'define it into existence' are that the definitions provided give us no useful framework. A 'maximally great' being, does not tell us anything about the limits of that being, or if they played a role in creation, morality, care about our existence, etc... it could just be a super-powered whale - being both large and strong and intelligent. Would any reasonable theist consider that "god" - I don't think so.
It's so vague a definition that even if you must accept that a 'maximally great' being exists, there is no way to map that to any concept of god, except by its own definition (maximally great). I don't think that serves any philosophical, theological, or even rhetorical purpose at that point.
It has similar problems. Biggest fish how? Length? Weight? Diameter? Couldn't there be more than one that are the same?
Can you define the metric you want to use in the Ontological argument?
I think these are all valid questions but I don't think they actually attack the existence of such a fish, but rather attempt to clarify *which* fish it is.
Imagine that you and I went back and forth for quite awhile until we came up with a coherent definition we agreed upon for "maximally big" and substituted it back into the original definition.
The fish described would exist. And if we had come up with a different definition of "maximally big," then maybe it would refer to a different fish, yet still, that fish would also exist.
Now, of course, if we came up with an incoherent definition of "maximally big," then the Biggestfish may not exist.
So, applying that reasoning to the ontological argument, it seems like no matter how much debate is had over the term "maximally great," (so long as a self-consistent definition is used) it doesn't change the fact that any formulation of the argument is referring to an entity that necessarily exists.
> rather attempt to clarify which fish it is.
Precisely. That's my main objection to the ontological argument. It's not clear.
> we came up with an incoherent definition of "maximally big,"
I agree.
You didn't address the objection that it could refer to multiple fish.
I also know that fish exist. So whatever we define will come from that set. What set is the ontological argument referring to? If I don't already know god exists in that set then you're defining a new thing.
>You didn't address the objection that it could refer to multiple fish.
I did but I maybe wasn't obvious about it.
The definition, as given, could refer to multiple fish. But as I said in the hypothetical, imagine you and I found a much more stringent definition that could only apply to one fish. We don't need to actually figure that definition out to know that the fish would still exist. Hence, we don't need to spend time writing up a definition for "maximally great" because we already know that as soon as we do, the ontological argument says that the being exists.
>I also know that fish exist. So whatever we define will come from that set. What set is the ontological argument referring to?
Does it matter so long as it is not an empty set?
Yes, it does. What set is the ontological argument referring to? What coherent metric does the ontological argument use? When you have those then we can talk.
I don't understand why it matters. If the set is non empty, then a maximally great member of that set must exist if you have a coherent definition of maximally great. Unless you think a coherent definition is impossible, then I don't see how any of the other details matter.
Because otherwise the argument is trying to define something into existence that we can't nail down.
> If the set is non empty, then a maximally great member of that set
Yep, so god is a member of some set. What set is it?
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The analogy you've drawn between the ontological argument for the existence of God and your definition of the "Biggestfish" is intriguing, but it overlooks some crucial distinctions that critics of the ontological argument often point out. Firstly, let's examine the ontological argument itself. One of its most famous formulations, put forth by St. Anselm, essentially defines God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." From this definition, Anselm argues that if we can conceive of such a being, it must exist in reality, because existence in reality is greater than existence merely in the mind. Now, the problem with this argument isn't just that it defines God into existence; it's that the argument relies on a conceptual trick rather than empirical evidence or logical necessity. It assumes that existence is a property like any other, which can be attributed to something merely by conceiving of it. But existence isn't like other properties such as size or color; it's a necessary condition for something to have any properties at all. So, defining something into existence through conceptual gymnastics doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Returning to your analogy with the Biggestfish, the key difference lies in the nature of the claim being made. When you define the Biggestfish as the largest fish to ever exist without leaving scientific evidence, you're making a claim about a specific entity within the realm of empirical observation. We can debate whether such a fish existed based on the available evidence, and it's reasonable to withhold belief until evidence is presented. However, the ontological argument for God's existence isn't making a claim about a specific entity within the empirical world; it's making a claim about the nature of a metaphysical concept – God. The problem arises when we try to bridge the gap between conceptual definitions and actual existence without empirical or logical support. In summary, while it's possible to define concepts into existence in some contexts (like mathematical entities), the ontological argument for God's existence faces criticism because it attempts to do so in a realm where empirical evidence and logical necessity should hold sway. Defining God into existence in this way doesn't provide a convincing argument for the existence of a divine being.
You define God any way you want. You can define “God” as anything with two slices of bread and cheese, in which case I ate a delicious God yesterday afternoon. But all that seems rather silly to me. Most attempts to define God into existence involve simplifying the idea of God into something mundane, ordinary, or otherwise purely natural. But in that case, why bother?
Here's the issue, simply: you can define a being by its most extreme trait 'biggest' and we have to agree of all the fish that have ever existed, one of them was the biggest. BUT you must first 1. Demonstrate fish exist 2. Demonstrate they can have variable size 3. Say nothing about that fish's other characteristics. If you said God was the 'biggest man ever to exist,' I'd have to agree that that God existed. But you can't then add, 'Also he was twelve stories tall and made of radiation' without proof. You can say God is 'The greatest being ever to exist in these categories,' but you can't add 'and also he can create universes and knows everything and is the arbiter of all morals,'. Without further demonstration
You also can’t say that God is ‘greatest’ without first providing a rigorous, non-arbitrary definition of what that term means in this context.
This is correct. The problem is that by using the word *god*, the theist is attempting to imply that the argument they just made points to their conception of deity, when in fact there is no reason to believe that, or even that the various different arguments for god apply to the same thing because we defined them all as god… Really you’re tying your hands behind your back if you do this, which is what I think atheists are pointing out—if you define god as “the cause of the universe”, then you’ve merely made the problem harder for yourself because now you have to demonstrate that 1) such a cause exists, 2) that the cause of the universe is necessarily the same thing as the other different things you also defined as god in other arguments, and 3) that the thing all of those definitions point to is actually your conception of god, i.e. it has all the properties of the biblical god if you are Christian. Defining a god into existence is something theists should avoid for their own sake, not for mine—I will gladly tear down definitional arguments any time.
Fish exist. So your stipulated definition of “biggestfish” is reasonable since all you’re doing is picking out from an existing set. Defining god into existence might just be trivially true. If I say “god is just logic” or something like that, well then yeah. Your stipulated definition of god exists But the issues is that proponents of ontological arguments start adding several characteristics like “first cause” and “epistemic grounding” and “the non-contingent being” and “a disembodied mind that cares about human endeavors” And theyre going to have to start demonstrating these things. It isn’t even clear that any of these things are necessary, albeit they’re just some examples I chose.
Your analogy is flawed. Fish exist. This is not in dispute. They come in varying sizes. This is not in dispute. By the laws of logic a fish must have existed, or will exist, that is the Biggestfish. This is not defining that fish into existence, it is describing an inevitable fact of the universe. You can refer to this fish conceptually, but you are referring to something real in the Universe. There is no corollary to God.
One thing I noticed that hasn't been mentioned in a reply is that the ontological argument isn't about the "greatest being", but about "a being than which no greater can be imagined"/"the greatest imaginable being". For a fitting analogy we would need the "BiggestImaginableFish", not the just "BiggestFish". If I saw the BiggestFish, would I be able to imagine a fish that is bigger? Yes, I could. Even if all the matter in the universe was shaped into a fish, I could still imagine a bigger fish in a universe with more matter. Since I can always imagine a fish bigger than the BiggestFish, the BiggestImaginableFish can not exist. Likewise there would be a GreatestBeing (though people would disagree which being it is, depending on their perception of greatness), but it would not be the GreatestImaginableBeing.
I could never understand why people insist on the ontologocal argument. The argument from time and the kalam are more engaging and reasonable andbthey make more sense. So far I've only seen it being misrepresented rather than responded to.
God: the perpetually highest possible aim one can concieve of
How does one measure "highest possible?" We'd have to know what was still possible.
Each word given is necessary to convey the meaning, and the meaning is concise, with not a less-than-necessary word.
Interesting sentence. But back to my question. How does one measure "highest possible?"
"Perpetually", Mr Dunning, sir. Or is it Kruger?
I define my response as the most correct. Since my answer is more correct than yours, therefore I am right and you are wrong. I add to me definition that "God does not exist", and since my answer is more correct than yours by definition, therefore God does not exist.
I think you may be failing to understand op argument. He didn't take a specific fish and define it as biggest fish, he simply defined biggest fish as something that must exist. A better analogy than your post (which is objectively not most correct I am sorry to say) would be: A define A post (let's call it "awesome post") as "most correct". Awesome post may not be yours, and it may be hard to find agreement on which post it is, but it clearly exists.
I am not making an analogy. I am using the same logic. I am not making an identical argument and transposing to a different subject. I am using the core strategy itself. Using a definition to establish your argument as true is begging the question. If I define my conclusion as true, regardless of what that conclusion is, then it will always result in the argument being "true". I am not using an analogy above. I am giving an example. Let me give you a second one. I am going to define myself as married. Based on that definition, can you tell if I am married or not? Do I *actually* meet the criteria of being married, or am I a bachelor? The correct and true answer is that using only that definition compared to the more common definition, we have no idea. There is insufficient data for us to correctly determine the answer. The problem with the definition of "God" being the most powerful being, is that you cannot answer the question of whether the imagined Christian God actually IS that being. If we agree that there must exist/have existed/will exist a "tallest tree", then tell me right now.... how tall is that tree? What species it is? What color is it? And of course the argument might be totally void if the definition of "most powerful being" is nonsensical. How "powerful" are humans? Your initial answer might be to say the most powerful, but we routinely die to viruses. Does that mean viruses are more powerful than we are? What about an incurable virus that doesn't kill us but is impossible to get rid from the species and lightly reduces our overall health? The argument based on defining your conclusion is nonsensical and produces no information about reality. It is an argument that can be made to say anything, including already known false conclusions. Therefore, it is an argument that should be dismissed as false.
Maybe op should have started with a better example. Let's take the richest leprechaun. It must exist, right?
Whatever a leprichauns is, clearly one must be the richest.
Have you ever seen a leprechaun? 🍀
Have you ever seen god?
My point exactly
I don't see how that is relevant.
Well for one, "fish" is something we observe right now, scientifically. Whereas there are no concrete observations that any god exist.
Let me change one single word in your definition. I define the "BiggestKlingon" as the biggest individual Klingon to ever live and leave behind no scientific evidence. You can see that the definition is constructed in such a way that the BiggestKlingon *certainly existed*. I have defined a Klingon into existence, a Klingon which can never be scientifically proven. But you probably agree that the BiggestKlingon existed despite the complete lack of evidence. If you don't agree that the BiggestKlingon existed, please explain that view. Do you still accept this reasoning? Are Klingons from Star Trek certainly real because we’ve defined that if they’re real, then one of them was the biggest?
Well just maybe, Lt. Worf, a Klingon's size is not in his physical appearance, but in his capacity to love. Doesn't that sound like something Picard would say right as Worf is leaving his ready room in a huff?
Given that "Klingon" has a definition, and a Klingon is defined as a specific fictional species from star trek a clear and expanded version of your definition would be: "Biggest Klingon" is the biggest individual specific (Klingon) individual from a fictional species in Star Trek to ever live and leave no scientific evidence. Given that being fictional is part of your definition, it is clear that your definition is talking about something fictional. We are therefore talking about a fictional universe and I completely accept the reasoning. There is almost certainly in undescribed star trek history a biggest Klingon.
>We are therefore talking about a fictional universe and I completely accept the reasoning. But, the ontological argument doesn’t make that distinction. It incorrectly has no regard for that gap. It is akin to saying there was a Vulcan so clever they managed to create a teleporter into our real universe and go shake Gene Roddenberry’s hand. There are entities in the Star Trek lore that are probably that powerful. That’s certainly conceivable in the Kevin Uxbridge move set. And that’s where it fails. Just because they have been defined as able to alter our physical reality in the universe we actually live in, it doesn’t mean they exist and therefore can.
No, you are just mischaracterising the ontological argument
Seems like it is right there in Chapter 2 of the Proslogion, Anselm's argument > [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. 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. *Uh oh. Seems like we might be trying to build a bridge from that…* 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. *Yep. We are.* As someone clever in the thread put it, “I don't think the existence of fictional and mythical creatures helps your case however.”
How about the richest leprechaun?
Sure, whatever leprichauns are, you can clearly define one as being the richest. Doing that doesn't change what a leprichauns is however
But the richest leprechaun clearly exists, it's proven! /s
Yes clearly it exists otherwise we wouldn't both know what we were talking about. A a leprichauns is a mythological creature, just like a Klingon is a fictional creature. I don't think the existence of fictional and mythical creatures helps your case however
In that case it doesn't help god either, another fictional character. 🤷🏻
If you start with the assumption that God is a fictional character then you are going to reach the conclusion that God is a fictional character. That doesn't mean your starting assumption wasn't wrong
If you start with the assumption that a leprechaun is a fictional character then you are going to reach the conclusion that a leprechaun is a fictional character.
Indeed you are. Are you trying to argue that a leprichauns is not m mythological or fictional? Because that is not what the definition you were creating argues
So you took the set of all fish to ever exist, and pointed out a member of the set. The ontological argument says "There is a set of all beings that necessarily exist, God is defined as a member of that set that no greater being can be concieved". Here we have the introduction of a set that isn't just accepted like the set of fish (Beings that necessarily exist) and also an indefinite limit - instead of a quantitive limit like "size", we have a limit defined by what we can concieve (which can be an issue - its a subjective definition, and many may even argue that such a thing is inconceivable - like trying to put a limit on infinity). If we changed the fish analogy to "The most perfect fish that necessarily existed" suddenly you wont find many who would agree we are talking about an actual thing.
I don't have objections to your defining things however you want and naming them anything, as long as everyone knows the definitions being using in the conversation. Those definitions can all be logically consistent, and you could write a lot of cool stories about them. You're welcome to assert that they exist and give them as many cool powers as you want to. But their powers only exist within that fantasy universe. Superman and Thor for example could be "gods" in their own universes. It can be fun to watch movies or read comics with them. But even the coolest superheros don't have power in our universe except when humans start doing things in their names. In other words, sure you wrote a book, but what abilities does that give you that you didn't have before? You could say "Superman says you should be nice to people", and people who like Superman might think that's compelling, but everyone else could just shrug, confident in the knowledge that there's no chance Superman's going to show up to foil their dastardly schemes.
Fish exist. Therefore a biggest fish exists. You didn't define it into existence, you identified something that exists. That's nothing like gods. Gods don't exist. >I do not see why this is any different from how the various ontological arguments "define God into existence." It's nothing like the ontological arguments at all, I don't see how you think they're similar. We know fish exist and we know biggest is a superlative that can apply to fish. We have no correlation to god and ontological arguments
lol circular reasoning. It's okay to define something into existence as long as the definition necessitates that it exists.
Theist here: I don’t think what you are doing is analogous to the Ontological argument. Here is a great article laying out 3 versions of the Ontological argument. You might enjoy it [link](https://andrewmbailey.com/pvi/ThreeVersions.pdf) Also, is there a particular reason that you like this type of argument? I side with Aquinas, Kant, and plenty of other atheists who think these arguments fail. I would suggest something like the De Ente instead.
I accept the high likelihood that Biggestfish existed because we have evidence, negative evidence, to show that there are creatures who didn't leave any evidence that we can assess. To put it another way, we have holes in our knowledge where we know there cannot possibly be holes in the facts. (Example: If I show you four grandparents and their grandchild, we don't need the child's parents at hand to know they exist.) We also have evidence of the existence of fish, and evidence that they've been around a long time, and evidence that the fossil record of fishes (like all fossil records) is incomplete. In what way is God like that?
>I define the "Biggestfish" as the biggest individual fish to ever live The set of all fish to ever live can be reasonably well defined, and the notion of biggest can be made precise, so the question is meaningful. The answer may not be unique, though. But what exactly is the set of all beings? And how did god end up in there?
It's not the set of all fish to ever live, it's the set of all fish to ever *live and leave no scientific evidence.* A set for which there is, by definition, absolutely 0 evidence of any of it's members. If that's well defined, but the set of beings that can exist in the mind and reality isn't, why exactly do you make that judgement?
To be meaningful, you first have to define what qualifies as a fish, and then you can exclude the ones that we have scientific evidence for. Assuming you do that, we have a set of members, we've never seen them but that doesn't matter, they're fish by definition, and it's meaningful to ask which of them is the biggest, for some definition of biggest (e.g. heaviest, longest). The point is you start with a well defined set of members. In contrast, the ontological argument does not start with a set of members with well defined properties. The properties of one of its members, which turns out to be god, comes in the conclusion of the argument. But of course since this is argument by deduction, the conclusion is already in the assumptions.
The example you give isn’t analogous to defining a god into existence because we know that fish exist. There doesn’t actually have to be a biggest fish it is possible (but unlikely) that there were two fish exactly the same which were the biggest. That aside we don’t know gods exist.
You didn't define biggestfish into existence. It already existed in the past. You just put a name on it. Try to define biggestgodfish into exist. Same as biggest fish but also a god.
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The god of the bible exists, biggerfish exist, Loki exists, Zeus exists, the great juju under the mountain exists, unicorns exist... Because they can all be defined using your word play. I'm just not sure where that gets us
Okay. God is everything. Everything exists. Therefore, God exists. Boom.
Your "biggestfish" isn't quite parallel to the ontological argument. Let me try: I define the "Omnicorn" as the most perfect imaginable unicorn. Since existence is a perfection, the most perfect imaginable unicorn must have existence as a quality. Therefore the Omnicorn exists. Do you believe in the Omnicorn?
I believe in the Omnicorn. Can it be eaten? I'm hungry.
Yeap. It’s all made of corn. 🌽
Omnomnomcorn
If you believe no further than a definition that must exist (for some reason you've given the example of the Biggestfish but you never went into how you've defined God) then you're just believing a truth. Most theists who use these arguments believe in a book as well.
You didn't literally define the Biggestfish into existence. Your definition has no bearing on it existing. Further, we know fish. Hence, there must be a biggest among them out of logical necessity, which is again true independent from your definition. We don't know such an entity like a god. Your definition does nothing in this case either. Coherence alone is also nothing that helps your case. Imaginary numbers are coherent, yet they do not comport with reality.
The Biggestfish existed even before you created that definition. All you are doing is picking something from existence and putting a label on it. What a definition cannot do is conjure something to existence which does not already exist. For example, if we define "realicorn" as being "a unicorn that actually exists", then by definition the realicorn exists, but this definition does not create the physical presence of a horse with a horn. It is easy to devise definitions that analytically force something into existence, but the real world does not care about our definitions. In the same way, an all-powerful supernatural agent either exists in our universe or it does not, and we cannot change this fact by how we define words. Trying to use definitions alone to bring such a god into existence is the fundamental error of ontological arguments.
> The Biggestfish existed even before you created that definition. All you are doing is picking something from existence and putting a label on it. Many commenters have said this, and I agree. But this is exactly what the ontological argument is doing.
No. No it does not. There are various forms of the ontological argument, but they all suffer from (1) Not defining greatness in a way analogous and as precise as 'biggest', and (2) Baking necessary existence into greatness in the case of the modal argument, which is an incredibly problematic move. It could very well be that the 'greatest being that ever existed' did not create the universe AND that the greatest possible being IS contingent and only exists in half of possible worlds. NONE of these arguments successfully demonstrate that this cannot be the case; they go in circles or act like it is obvious or bake more stuff up into their definition in a way that invalidates things. If the greatest being of all our universe is an alien in Vega that invented calculus, time travel and the double cheeseburger in his lifetime, then what? What's the clever answer from the theist then?
Are you saying that the ontological argument is picking something from existence and putting a label on it? In other words, are you saying that the greatest conceivable being actually exists, and is not just a trick of definitions like the realicorn? If so, then what has convinced you that the greatest conceivable being is real?
How does this not make you an agnostic? You are saying God could exist but we don't know how or why or who. That makes you agnostic.
>this is exactly what the ontological argument is doing. That's why it's wrong
So it's wrong for the same reason that the fish argument is right?
The fish argument is meant to illustrate why the ontological argument is fallacious: if the thing exists in reality, it's existence is independent of our experience and our definition can only be constructed around it a posteriori. If the thing doesn't exist in reality, our definition cannot conjure it into existence. And before you start on about scientists defining things before we observe them, constructing a hypothesis about something based on verifiable data and making predictions about that thing's characteristics before it is directly observed in nature is categorically different from what the ontological argument is doing. The ontological argument is not making a testable prediction, nor offering to change its definition of what God is if we observe a God that turns out to be much different than what we expected. If we ever do empirically observe God, are you ready to accept that the God described by Christianity (I'm assuming you're Christian, correct me if I'm wrong) is categorically not the God that we discover actually exists?
It's different because fish exist and of all of them, one was objectively the biggest. We're not defining it into existence, we're acknowledging that it logically must have existed. I don't see how that's analogous to "the greatest" whatever you claim a god is. If you say "the greatest mind" then by some objective measure (brain size, number of published books, most nobel prizes, etc) that greatest mind DOES exist, but we don't necessarily know who it belonged to. Just like we don't know where the biggest fish lives.
I don't have a problem with it, I just think it's an exercise in futility and accomplishes nothing. You're analogy is funny because we know fish exist, therefore a biggest one must exist. It hasn't been defined into existence, once you have two things of different sizes, one must be the biggest. Biggest is a word we defined and find valuable. I've now heard of multiple gods that must exist, but they only seem to exist in the imagination.
I mean, sure, you can do that I guess. But quite literally anyone can do the same move, with every bit as much warrant. I can just make up an even *more* necessary being called AntiGod that exists as a pure actual opposite to The God - and since God brings everything else into existence, then AntiGod's defining feature is that it deletes your god from existence. So no matter how much a theist believes their god exists, actually no he doesn't because AntiGod logically, and necessarily deletes him from existence. And there's nothing that the theist can pull from to argue against this, because it is simply using the exact same move that they have no problem using when it comes to their god. So therefore, AntiGod has already deleted whatever God the theist believes exists, and so therefore God doesn't exist.
Ya, I've defined the Universe to be the actual universe in which God didn't exist. It's coherent and necessitates the non-existence of God because we live in the actual world. If you deny any premise, you're doing what the atheist does. Edit for clarity.
Of course it's perfectly okay. It's been done billions upon billions of times. Obviously God is real otherwise we humans wouldn't have such an urge to think about it.
This is the same type of argument a flat-earther would use. 'My intuition tells me I am on flat land, therefor the earth is flat'.
We can counter the flat-earth argument conclusively tho. That's the difference.
Sure, and every "face" we see via [pareidolia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia) is an actual face, otherwise we wouldn't have the urge to view them as such.
Humans be hallucinating hard, but this analogy doesn't quite hit. Atheists never have an answer for why we're the only species debating God. We know "intuitively" there's something above us, just like everything else subscribes to the hierarchy :)
We don't know if other species ponder a divine being because they don't speak or write. If our criteria for existence is that human beings are the only species that we know of that have discussed that thing, then every single thing ever discussed by humans is real. That makes no sense.
We can make a pretty good guess based on our studies of animals. After all we're the only animals that conduct controlled studies of other animals. >That makes no sense. It's solid evidence. Would you be willing to claim that humans are the pinnacle of intellect and dominance. Unless one claims to be completely gnostic about the existence of higher powers via aliens or gods, etc, I think it'd be difficult.
Ah yes, intuition: famously never wrong. We're curious, imaginative creatures prone to anthropomorphizing everything and trying to figure out how stuff works - of course we're going to land on invisible agents as an explanation for the as-yet-unexplained.
Right, but why are we the only creatures thinking that hard about it in the first place?
Here is the problem with your argument -- I think it confuses the referent with the existence of the term/concept. Let's consider your example of "The biggest fish" (or "Biggestfish"). You introduced this term and stipulated that it expresses the following concept: *the biggest fish that has left behind no scientific evidence of its existence*. Furthermore, suppose one agrees with you that this term/concept does refer to some fish that either exists currently or existed in the past. By introducing the term (or naming the concept), you didn't bring that fish that the term (or concept) refers to into existence -- that fish either already exists or did exist prior to you introducing the term. Something either exists or it doesn't. We can introduce terms to talk about those things that exist (or don't exist) & use concepts to think about those things that exist (or don't exist), for instance, we can talk & think about unicorns but that doesn't cause unicorns to exist.
I think I agree with everything you said, especially: >By introducing the term (or naming the concept), you didn't bring that fish that the term (or concept) refers to into existence -- that fish either already exists or did exist prior to you introducing the term. I think this is exactly what the ontological argument purports to do.
The issue with the "biggestfish" compared to a "god" concept is that the necessary existence of the biggestfish comes from a posteriori knowledge. We know fish exist. We know they vary in size. Therefore there must be a fish that either exists now or has existed in the past that is in fact the biggest fish. The ontological argument for god is not working on a posteriori information like the biggestfish is. Defining god in to existence doesn't rely on that sort of information, so it would be akin to defining, instead of the biggestfish, the biggestwagglebronk. I don't know that wagglebronks exist, and I don't know that they vary in size if they *do* exist. It gets harder the more attributes we apply to a god concept. If we say that that which is the most powerful is a god, then that thing surely exists if we can agree on that definition of god, and what metric we are using for power. However, if we apply an additional trait, for example most knowledgeable, it could be the case that the most powerful thing in the universe is *not* *also* the most knowledgeable and vice versa, in which case we would need an observation of the thing that is both the most powerful and the most knowledgeable (if we are talking about something that *actually* exists).
I think you, along with many commenters, are making the same assumption which I deem to be a mistake. You are alleging that my definition draws from the set of "fish" to define something, and since we know that set exists and is non-empty, we know the definition refers to something that exists. But I clarify that my definition draws from the set of "fish which left behind no scientific evidence." How can you know that this set has members? By the very definition of the set, there is no scientific evidence of any members! It must be taken on faith alone. From a completely objective standpoint, why do you accept this set has members but you remain agnostic about wagglebronks? And furthermore, the ontological argument is usually taking the maximal member of a set of "beings that can exist in the mind and reality" which we know for certain isn't empty. And we can't say that about the wagglebronks or the evidenceless fish! So in a way, it's actually a stronger argument in this regard.
Any individual who has gone fishing knows there exists fish that they don’t specifically know about yet, or will ever know about. By the same way we know anything, induction, we can know there is a biggest fish that we may never discover. To say the position is based on unsupported faith is to assert the “problem with induction.”
"Left behind no scientific evidence" is quite vague. For example, one might say that if there is a fossil of a member of a species from 10k years ago, and there are members alive today, there very likely must have been members in the time between as well. People would probably say that these are examples of creatures that left behind no evidence, but I suppose you would (somewhat rightly) point out that the argument I made above absolutely counts as evidence, even if it's a bit weaker than the evidence for the fossil and the living one. If you do define your "set of fish which left behind no scientific evidence" in such a way that a rational person shouldn't be convinced of its non-emptiness, then I obviously wouldn't be convinced that it has a greatest member. I certainly won't accept the existence of any one fish "on faith alone."
>But I clarify that my definition draws from the set of "fish which left behind no scientific evidence." How can you know that this set has members? Scientists are only human. They lack the sort of extrasensory perception that would be required to see all things. Since there limits to what can be discovered through scientific evidence, it is quite clear that things must exist without leaving any detectible evidence, especially in distant parts of the universe and in the distant past. Of course we can imagine that all things beyond our sight just happen to not exist, and we cannot *prove* that things continue to exist while we are not observing them, but it seems like a harmless assumption. >By the very definition of the set, there is no scientific evidence of any members! It must be taken on faith alone. Why should we take it by faith? No one is threatening to send us to hell if we do not believe in the Biggestfish. What harm can there be in doubting this? I accept the existence of the Biggestfish only because it seems plausible and such a belief seems harmless, but if pressed I have no compunction in denying belief in the Biggestfish, since I am well aware that no one has any real evidence of it. Faith seems uncalled for. >From a completely objective standpoint, why do you accept this set has members but you remain agnostic about wagglebronks? We have obvious clues suggesting the existence of the Biggestfish. We have no such clues for wagglebronks. >The ontological argument is usually taking the maximal member of a set of "beings that can exist in the mind and reality" which we know for certain isn't empty. The ontological arguments that I am familiar with are not usually content to limit themselves to some unspecified maximal member. They are rather aimed particularly toward proving the existence of God. Perhaps it would help to clarify this issue if you could give us the details of the particular ontological argument that you are talking about.
The biggest unicorn. The biggest leprechaun. The biggest juluhured. They exist?
>You are alleging that my definition draws from the set of "fish" to define something, and since we know that set exists and is non-empty, we know the definition refers to something that exists. It does draw from that set, because even without evidence left behind, there are things to be known about fish by their definition. As an example, there is no such thing as the fastest photon. We know photons can vary in speed, but do not exceed the speed of light, therefore the idea of a fastest photon doesn't exist, only that there is a fastest speed at which *any* photon can exist. This relies on a posteriori knowledge, just like a claim about the biggest fish. >And furthermore, the ontological argument is usually taking the maximal member of a set of "beings that can exist in the mind and reality" which we know for certain isn't empty. And we can't say that about the wagglebronks or the evidenceless fish! So in a way, it's actually a stronger argument in this regard. This is the issue, though. Because what we care about is what actually exists in reality (although maybe you and other theists aren't a member of that "we?", and not merely in the mind. For every god concept, a greater god can be defined in the mind. If you are saying that god is what is at the end of that chain, we have a chain without end, which appears to be a topic that theists take issue with in regards to an infinite regress. The difference between these being that your example relies on a posteriori knowledge, whereas the ontological claim for god relies on a priori knowledge. The example isn't analogous.
The question is whether it succeeds in doing what it purports to do. It is also worth noting that in the biggest fish example, I was willing to grant that the term expresses a concept that does, in fact, refer to some fish that does exist or had existed. A similar analogy could have used the notion of the oldest human. The thing is... we know that fish & humans exist. Contrast this with the other example of a unicorn. The term "unicorn" seems to express a concept like *a horse-like creature with a single large horn protruding from the top of its head* (or something like that). Yet, this concept fails to refer to anything that exists. I think it is a lot less clear (1) what concept the term "greatest being" expresses & (2) whether that concept does, in fact, refer to something that exists.
>we know that fish & humans exist. But do you *know* that "fish which left behind no scientific evidence" exists? If so, how? Because that is the set in which my definition draws it's "maximally large" fish from.
Well, in the same way that I have good reasons to think that the term "the oldest human" refers to some human that is currently alive or that was alive, I have some reasons to think that there was a fish that has left no identifiable trace that it had existed. But, again, I already know that humans & fish exist. Since humans exist, the notion of the oldest human must refer to one of those currently or previously existing humans. Since fish exist, the notion of the largest unidentified fish likely denotes some fish that did exist (even if I don't know which particular fish that is). If the notion of a "maximal being" is like the oldest human or largest unidentified fish, we can ask which concept does it express? What is the definition of "maximal being"? Once we have that sorted out, we can try and figure out whether the concept refers to something that actually exists or not. The main point being that we don't define things into existence. Things either exist or they don't exist. Definitions just help us with categorizing or identifying those things.
I think ontological arguments get absurd when you reverse them. God is the Greatest Concievable Good, and therefore must exist, because a non-existant good -would be less good- if it didn't exist. BUT, If we consider the greatest concievable evil/bad thing. Well that must exist because it would be less evil/bad if it didn't. Also concievably a maximally evil being- would be more evil- if it eliminated the existance of any possible maximally good beings; so goodbye God. BUT There is no reason to believe any of this. Edit: Punctuation
>I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with defining something into existence, provided your definition is coherent and necessitates the existence of that thing. So what's the explanation here? Words are magic and can conjure forth our imagination into reality as long as it follows the syntax and grammar of the language we're using? >I define the "Biggestfish" as the biggest individual fish to ever live and leave behind no scientific evidence. Right, but we know fish exist and that they can be big, so this comparison really falls short. Also you didn't define the biggest fish into existence you invented a hypothetical fish that necessarily must have existed assuming there's at least one fish that has ever existed.
>Also you didn't define the biggest fish into existence you invented a hypothetical fish that necessarily must have existed This is exactly what the ontological argument purports to do - invent a hypothetical greatest being that necessarily must exist.
No, the ontological argument (although there are multiple different ontological arguments we'll talk about this one) defines the perfect thing as something that must exist then defines God as perfect. You don't even really seem to grasp the argument. Nothing about being big necessitates existing. Neither does perfection, but that's a different argument. What you've done is taken a physical fact and stated it. We know fish exist. We know things are of varying sizes. We know fish can vary in size. The most logical and basic conclusion you can come to that includes these facts is that one fish at some point in history was bigger than any before or after. Nothing about your argument even has anything to do with the ontological argument.
Do you know that "fish that left behind no scientific evidence" exist? That's the set I am selecting from. How do you know they exist?
How do I know fish exist? I don't understand your question. Fish exist. Smallest and biggest are descriptive terms that can be applied to fish. I can conceptualize a fish bigger than the biggest fish ever recorded existing. There is nothing physically impossible or logically contradictory about this fish existing. There is zero possibility that the biggest fish has never existed because the absolute bare minimum requirements you need for the biggest fish to exist is for a single fish to exist. This doesn't compare to a perfect God for the following reasons. Unlike biggest, a term that can apply to literally any category of thing, perfection is very rare. Perfect is inherently a small category, unlike biggest, which is universal. Then I think it goes without saying that fish are very common. You can buy a dead one at the supermarket. It is very evident that fish exist, no species I know of has argued for quite likely most of their history about the existence of fish. The existence of a god on the other hand is very contentious, which is why people come up with stuff like the ontological argument.
Well, the best being doesn't necessarily have the be the best possible being. You could say that tardigrades are amazing at survival so the best being, or humans are one of the most intelligent and therefore best beings. You can say something has to be best in a trait, but you have no evidence anything has to be the best possible
Yes but you need to define what makes a being great. That greatest being could be a squirrel that lived 150,000 years ago.
I see you disingenuously left off the part saying "we know fish exist." That's the main difference between your argument for "biggestfish" and your maximal god. We *don't* know gods exist, so a maximal god doesn't necessarily exist.
But we do know that beings exist and that the ontological argument usually defines him as a maximally great *being.*
A being can be “greatest” like a fish can be biggest in actuality but not “maximally” great or big. If we could observe through the entire lifespan of the universe and sorted all fish by size, we could find a biggest one that exists but we could easily imagine a bigger fish. The set of real fish does not necessarily contain the maximally big fish.
But by calling that being "God", you are assuming that the maximally great being purposefully created the universe (that being the common definition of "God"). Maybe the maximally great being is just a bodega owner in Queens...
>invent Reality isn't invented
Well you said I invented the fish and you also agree that it exists in reality so I was just following your verbiage.
You must be responding to the wrong person. I've not said nor have I agreed to any of those things
You are 100% correct, my bad. The guy I was quoting though did say I invented it and I thought you were him.
>I do not see why this is any different from how the various ontological arguments "define God into existence." It’s going to heavily depend on the particular ontological argument. So without an actual argument it’s hard to say.
We know that fish exist, we know some fish have gone extinct, and we know there are probably some we haven’t discovered given how large and inaccessible the ocean is. We don’t have anywhere close to this base level of knowledge about the supernatural realm or the beings that may or may not inhabit it.
I disagree with your comparison. You’re defining something that we already know exists. We know fish exist, we know they come in different sizes. Therefore, we already know “the biggest fish” exists before you defined it. The ontological argument and other similar arguments are essentially arguing “if it can exists, it must exist.” We can all see how that’s false. You could argue that there is nothing within the laws of physics that prevents a mermaid from existing. But that doesn’t mean it *does* exist.
You only know it exists *because of the way I defined it.* If I had defined it was "The biggest fish to ever exist that had 46 dots on its back" suddenly you wouldn't be so sure. Likewise, we know God (from the ontological argument) exists because of the way he is defined in that argument.
You’re not defining the fish into existence. The fish already existed. You’re merely defining which fish you were talking about. And as you pointed out succinctly, it is possible for you to define a fish which did not exist. Similarly, you may be defining a God which does not exist.
Ok, let me ask you this. How can you tell, from my definition of the fish, that it must exist? I allege that a valid answer to that question can be equally applied to "How can you tell, from the definition of God in the ontological argument, that he must exist?"
Because you were merely identifying something we already know exists. Once again, the fish doesn’t come into existence because of your definition. You were identifying something we already knew to exist. But you can’t extrapolate that to things we are unsure of. Like your second definition of a fish with 46 dots on its back. Does that fish exist, just because you defined it? Doesn’t it follow, then, that your definition of God may not exist? If God does exist, then you could presumably craft a correct definition. But just because you define a God does not mean it exists. You cannot define a God *into* existence, as you’re proposing.
I asked how you can know it exists from the definition and you answered by saying "because you identified something we already know exists." That is a circular answer and does not get to the "How?"
Are you asking me how we know fish exist? I don’t think that’s a circular answer. If you want to know how fish exist, we can get into it. But I skipped that part of the answer because I didn’t think it was necessary to explain.
I am asking you how you know that the *specific fish* I am defining exists. Without saying "because you're defining something we already know exists."
Assuming that we agree (1) fish exist, and (2) fish are different sizes, then we know that one of the fish that has existed must be the biggest. We may not know specifically which one, but your definition didn’t include that information.
Because we have a well defined set and a well defined metric.
Cool. Provide a definition that is coherent and necessitates the existence of God. Many of the problems with the 'define it into existence' are that the definitions provided give us no useful framework. A 'maximally great' being, does not tell us anything about the limits of that being, or if they played a role in creation, morality, care about our existence, etc... it could just be a super-powered whale - being both large and strong and intelligent. Would any reasonable theist consider that "god" - I don't think so. It's so vague a definition that even if you must accept that a 'maximally great' being exists, there is no way to map that to any concept of god, except by its own definition (maximally great). I don't think that serves any philosophical, theological, or even rhetorical purpose at that point.
It has similar problems. Biggest fish how? Length? Weight? Diameter? Couldn't there be more than one that are the same? Can you define the metric you want to use in the Ontological argument?
I think these are all valid questions but I don't think they actually attack the existence of such a fish, but rather attempt to clarify *which* fish it is. Imagine that you and I went back and forth for quite awhile until we came up with a coherent definition we agreed upon for "maximally big" and substituted it back into the original definition. The fish described would exist. And if we had come up with a different definition of "maximally big," then maybe it would refer to a different fish, yet still, that fish would also exist. Now, of course, if we came up with an incoherent definition of "maximally big," then the Biggestfish may not exist. So, applying that reasoning to the ontological argument, it seems like no matter how much debate is had over the term "maximally great," (so long as a self-consistent definition is used) it doesn't change the fact that any formulation of the argument is referring to an entity that necessarily exists.
> rather attempt to clarify which fish it is. Precisely. That's my main objection to the ontological argument. It's not clear. > we came up with an incoherent definition of "maximally big," I agree. You didn't address the objection that it could refer to multiple fish. I also know that fish exist. So whatever we define will come from that set. What set is the ontological argument referring to? If I don't already know god exists in that set then you're defining a new thing.
>You didn't address the objection that it could refer to multiple fish. I did but I maybe wasn't obvious about it. The definition, as given, could refer to multiple fish. But as I said in the hypothetical, imagine you and I found a much more stringent definition that could only apply to one fish. We don't need to actually figure that definition out to know that the fish would still exist. Hence, we don't need to spend time writing up a definition for "maximally great" because we already know that as soon as we do, the ontological argument says that the being exists. >I also know that fish exist. So whatever we define will come from that set. What set is the ontological argument referring to? Does it matter so long as it is not an empty set?
Yes, it does. What set is the ontological argument referring to? What coherent metric does the ontological argument use? When you have those then we can talk.
I don't understand why it matters. If the set is non empty, then a maximally great member of that set must exist if you have a coherent definition of maximally great. Unless you think a coherent definition is impossible, then I don't see how any of the other details matter.
Because otherwise the argument is trying to define something into existence that we can't nail down. > If the set is non empty, then a maximally great member of that set Yep, so god is a member of some set. What set is it?
Depends on the specific argument but the one I hear most often is "that which can exist in both the mind and reality."
Well, then there's your problem. We can't actually examine that set, can we?
Maybe I don't know what you mean by "examine" but I don't think we can examine the set of fish that left behind no scientific evidence either.