Is Existence a Form of Perfection?

I was recently exposed to the ontological argument for God's existence, which states that

A. To rationally conceive of the idea of God, one must be thinking of that which nothing greater can be conceived. This basically is saying that you must be thinking of that which has all perfections.

B. Existence is a type of perfection, because, since there are only two options regarding existence, it is better to have existence.

Therefor, the rational idea of God must include existence.

So, according to this, how do we know that existence is a form of perfection, since we cannot conceive of non-existence?

 

I dont know, let me trip on it and I'll get back to ya :cheers2:

 

haha that's where all the answers lie :willy_nilly:

 

Lie? As in they are illusions? Or lie, as in embedded? :cheers2:

 

dammit I didn't want to use that word b/c of this lol.

stupid english language :banghead:

 

Existence is a form of RACISM.

 

I don't think you can say that because a thing is it is perfect.

Imperfection itself has existence. Unless we say imperfection is another form of perfection. But that's really just a contradiction in terms.

The argument that god must exist because nothing higher can be conceived and existence is a neccessary quality of the highest is an old argument first put forward in the early middle ages by St. Anselm.

The problem is that there is no actual reason to assume that becasue we can conceive of a thing it actually exists.
Bertrand Russell said it involves an illicit transition from the realm of the ideal into that of the actual, and I tend to agree with him on this.

 

Why is existence better than nonexistence? We have no idea which one is better. Personally I think nonexistence would be pure and perfect.

 

Nonexistence can't be pure and perfect, because nonexistence is NOTHING.

 

This is probably one of the better counter-arguments I've heard someone come up with. The only problem is how do we know that imperfection has existence though? If existence is indeed a form of perfection, then no, imperfection would not have existence.

I would say that because we can conceive of a thing, it does mean it exists, just not necessarily on our level of reality.

If I imagine a rock, and I throw it at an imaginary window, I can make my rock break my window, because they both have the same amount of reality in them, if you will.

However, if I imagine a rock, and throw it at a real window, the real window wont break, because there is more reality in the "real" window than there is in my "imaginary" rock.

So, it isn't that I'm assuming my conceptions exist, I know they exist, just not on the same level of reality that I am physically operating at.

 

Please elaborate...

 

Think of it as a math problem.

For you to say that nonexistence is pure and perfect you are saying

Nonexistence = pure; perfection.

This cannot be true, because by definition, nonexistence is the absence of everything. Nonexistence is even the absence of absence if that makes any sense.

The only thing that nonexistence can equal is itself, which is nothing.

 

It would dpend on what you define as 'perfection'.

But according to what you say, imperfection must exist because it is a concept in my head.

That isn't to say your conceptions line up with actual realities with an independent existence. If it were so, then we'd have to say anything we can imagine exists, mickey mouse, unicorns etc.

 

Maybe, but how do you know it's imperfection? That's another point to the thread, how do we define and know what is perfection and imperfection without simply using the opposite term in their respective definitions?

If you can imagine it, then it exists at least in your mind, no? What makes something an 'actual' reality? and as opposed to what?

 

Kudos to you, neodude, for tackling this one and your concluding question is excellent. I think the implication of your concluding question is astute:

We're stuck inside of existence. To be outside of it is not to be. So how can we know if it is perfection? To me this point is nothing more than semantics. Because something exists is no indication of perfection. If you could know my life, you would know this is true.

Further more, how can we know by this that God exists? If God exists then God is part of existence, if God doesn't exist, well then...

I would like to suggest a view of the ancient Greeks. One of the many views of the Greeks--they were, after all, a prolific people--was that somewhere there was a perfect world, but not this one. This world was an imperfect manifestation of the other perfect world. Thus, the Greek Tragedy. The Greek Tragedy grew up around the idea that because this world was imperfect ideals such as beauty, love, etc., which were born in the perfect world, could never exist in this imperfect world. But then what could one expect of the Greeks? They had to come up with all these thoughts of art, theatre, philosophy, law, etc. They had no television to watch.

But to get back to the original thread, point (A) is merely a statement. The Israelites believed that their God was perfect. The Greeks didn't see their dieties as being all that perfect, just beings that you didn't want to piss off.

Point (B), again I see as semantics. Just because existence is preferable to non-existence is no indication of perfection.

 

Indeed, and yet it has been the basis of so much religious philosophy over the ages, a cyclic argument that God must exist because the world is so perfect, and yet anything that seems flawed must somehow be shown to be perfect, for it was created by God.

Sorry, I'm just so high on Voltaire these days.

It is nonsense for us to imagine what perfection is. Whether or not the Universe is shown to be perfect, we'll still have to live in it.

 

Yeah, we're kind of looking at the situation from the wrong end. We see laws of physics that seem perfect, but we have no basis for thinking that they are. We might imagine that the world is made for us, because it serves us so well, and yet, if we accept that we are made the way we are because of the way the world is, this would seem foolish.

In other words, the laws of physics and the Universe seem perfect because they're better for us than not. If they were not, we would not survive long, and doubtless there are countless extinct species who would dispute the existence of God most heartily. But in truth, there is a lot about the Universe that is not perfect. Entropy, gravity, linear time... all these things have greatly inconvenienced humanity over the years, and yet still some of us imagine the Universe is designed with us in mind.

 

I think we have to use common sense. For instance, it's clear that people born with no legs have imperfect bodies. Don't need to be a philospher to work that out.

Some things exist only as imagination - unicorns for instance. There are no physical unicorns out there. Different in the case of a black dog - there are millions of actual examples.

 

I'm not sue its complete nonsense. Maybe by 'visioning' a more perfect state, we can then work to create it for ourselves. Perhaps we can create perfection, or little islands of perfection, as for example some artists seem to have at least come close to.
Isn't that really how we progress?

 

An evolutionary biologist might disagree with that. Adaptation means we are the way we are because of the conditions that exist in the world.
I guess that from that point of view we are more 'perfect' than lower animals, because better equipped to survive and promulgate our genes.