Here I go again with more of this thinking stuff. You ever get the feeling that you’ve thought of something mindblowing and then find out later that someone else thought about it 100s of years before you and it was probably just chilling in your subconscious? Yeah, I hate that. So a few days ago I was blabbering about ontology to little avail. Almost a year ago I was blabbering on the nature of knowing to basically the same end.
And now, last night, they, unsurprisingly in retrospect, merged. [damn lotta commas] So I guess this is my version of the ontological argument. It ends with God = Nothing, which is rather surprising.
Assume:
x = something
y = nothing
z = God
If y ⊆ x exists, where y is a subset of x, and z ⊆ x exists, where z is a subset of x, then y = z.
Postulates†:
- Is y a subset of x?
- If x is the set of all that exists then y exists. Ergo, y is a subset of x.
- Are y and x opposites?
- At first blush it seems so, but if y were not a subset of x then y would not exist. [i usually start boggling at this point.]
Proof†:
If y DNE then there would be no concept of y.
There is a concept of y. Mere discussion of y proves this.
Therefore, y exists.
If z DNE then there would be no concept of z.
There is a concept of z. Mere discussion of z proves this.
Therefore, z exists.
If y exists and z exists and they are both subsets of x, then y equals z.
Fallacies†:
I am equating the conceptual with the factual. I have apparently also decided that everything in the set of x is mutually exclusive to everything else. So it appears that everything is permitted. So lets do whatever we want.
you make my art school haven’t-taken-a-math-class-in-10-years brain hurt. I don’t even know what that symbol means.
neither did i. i had to look it up.
The one thing that I don’t quite get here. x and y both depend on each other. Without the one you cannot have a concept of the other. I’m not sure that you can argue that that they are subsets of each other. The other thing that gets me here is that it seems like by this logic god is finite because he/she/it exists. Ergo existance is greater than god, since god is a subset of of existance.
By the way I was reading something along these lines via slashdot. You might enjoy the story if you haven’t read it Adam, it’s by I. Asimov: