God probably exists

I will present two arguments for this debate - an Ontological Argument, and an Introspection argument. Ontological argument The argument is as follows: 1) If it is subjunctively possible that a Maximally Great Being exists, then, necessarily, a Maximally Great Being exists. 2) It is Subjunctively possible that a Maximally Great Being exists. 3) Necessarily, a Maximally Great Being exists. Firstly, some definitions: Maximally great being: A being possessing all great making properties Subjunctive possibility: Whether a statement might have been or could be true [1] Premise 1 is undeniable, as it follows the laws of Modal logic. Essentially, if something is subjunctively possible, then the being is said to exist in "some possible world" - some description of reality that is logically possible, and could have been true in an alternate description of reality. To give an example - I could have been born in Iraq in some possible world. The next part of reasoning is that it is greater to be a necessary being rather than a contingent being. This is undeniable as well. Because it is obviously greater to be necessary than contingent. A being which can interact in all possibe worlds is greater than a being which can only interact in some possible worlds. So if a maximally great being is contingent due to its subjunctive possiblity, and exists in "some possible world", then due to how it is greater to be necessary, the being exists in every possible world. However, if a being is necessary, then it exists in the real world! It has to, as the real world is a sub-set of every possible world. So why is a maximally great being subjunctively possible? To help understand this, imagine binary code. Great making properties are "1". Non-great-making properties are "0". A maximally great being will be: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1. .. .. . , possessing all great making properties. There will be no contradictions between each great making property - if there were, then the being woukd be "0 and 1 at the same time - and thus is subjunctively possible. If a maximally great being is subjunctively possible therefore, it follows, through axiom S5 (premise 1), that a maximally great being must exist. Now, we progress onto the Introspection argument. Introspection argument The introspection argument is as follows: 1. The mind exists 2. The properties of the mind are not those which matter can have C1. Mind is not reducible to matter 4. Substance dualism is impossible C2. Monistic idealism is true First some definitions: Substance dualism: Substance Dualism is a variety of dualism in the philosophy of mind which states that two sorts of substances exist: the mental and the physical. [2] Monistic idealism:" A system of philosophical idealism emphasizing the primacy of the One (as the Absolute or Nature) rather than of the many [3] Premise 1 is self-evident. Rene Descartes said, "I think therefore I am". If there is consciousness, then there is mind. As Sam Harris remarks, "consciousness is the one thing in this universe that can't be an illusion" [4] Premise 2 is the crucial premise. It states that mind and matter are not identical, and we can as a result, deduce that the properties of mental states are not that of which physical states can have. We can divide our senses into 2 categories - physical properties and mental properties. And to give an example - the mental property would be the feeling of pain, and the physical property would be the sending of electrical signals to the brain. The sending of electrical signal to the brain causes pain. However, these are not the same thing - an electrical signal to the brain can occur without the feeling of pain. All we experience is a correlation. As Thomas Nagel remarks; "If a mental event really is a physical event in this sense, and nothing else, then the physical event by itself - once its physical properties are understood - should be sufficient for the taste of sugar, the feeling of pain, or whatever it is supposed to be identical with. But it doesn't seem to be. It seems conceivable, for any physical event, there should be a physical event without any experience at all. Experience of taste seems to be something extra, continently related to the brain state - something produced rather than constituted by the brain state. So [taste] cannot be identical to the brain state in the same way water is identical to H2O. [5] Moreover, to support this 2nd premise, we can say that even if you knew every physical fact about the brain, you could not use it to deduce anything about mental states. This is illustrated by the analogy of Leplace' demon. Say there was as demon who knew every single thing about every last atom in the universe. Even though he knew everything, he could still not figure anything out concerning consciousness, the feeling of pain, or the taste of sugar, etc. So what does this tell us? Our mental state: i. e the feeling of pain, or the taste of sugar, cannot be the same as our brain state: the sending of signals to the brain. For if they were identical, by knowing the brain state, we could also know the mental state. But it is not the case. [6] In other words, Qualia (our individual experience of any event) is not a physical substance, and so is not identical to our physical brain. This means that the mental substance is something separate, and yet all we truly experience. So we can arrive at our first conclusion - mind, or our mental state, cannot be reduced to matter, or our brain state. But what are the implications of this? We have already established that mind and matter are not identical. One solution to this is Substance dualism. It asserts that there are 2 kinds of fundamental substances - mind, and matter. However, this immediately raises problems concerning interaction - as if there are 2 fundamental substances, then they have to interact via a shared property. This means that they are not seperate substances - they are both interlinked, as one. However, we have established that mind and matter are not identical, rendering substance dualism false. This leads us to our final conclusion: all is mind (otherwise known as Monistic Idealism). If mind is fundamental, and mind cannot be reduced to matter and substance dualism is false, then the only option left is that all is mind. There are no other possibilities. The notion that "all is mind" is backed up through recent discoveries in quantum mechanics. We know this due to the double slit experiment, which proved that nothing is certain until we measure it. During the experiment, electrons were fired through a double slit - when they were not observed, the electrons took a wave form, and showed up going through both slits; when it was observed, the electrons went through only one slit [7]. What this means is that mind and consciousness is the sole determinant of the world around us. Mind determines existence. Monistic idealism is true. But why does Monistic Idealism mean that God exists? Essentially, it means that there is a fundamental mind. If mind in the universe is fundamental, then there must be a fundamental mind. And if all is mind, then that means that the universe is information. However, the universe is changing all the time - and so information is being processed. But information can only be processed by a mind! The universe must be thinking! And ergo, there is a mind that is beyond the universe. This is essentially what we call God - a creator and sustainer of the universe. In hindsight, I should have elaborated in the opening round the format of the debate, but I will do so now. Round 1: acceptance Round 2: arguments, no rebuttals, Round 3: no new arguments, rebuttals to arguments Round 4: rebuttals to the rebuttals I now hand the debate over to Con. Vale Sources: [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] . http://www.philosophy-index.com... [3] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [4] . http://www.samharris.org... [5] . http://www.iep.utm.edu... [6] . http://www.informationphilosopher.com... [7] . http://abyss.uoregon.edu...