The definition of GOD

Much of what we now consider to be logical is done with the benefit of hindsight. Even then we frequently add labels such as counter-intuitive. This is because we observe things that sometimes defy the prevailing logic of the time, which forces us to re-appraise what is logical. Some of the stuff that is being observed in the world of quantum mechanics appears logical to those who have an understanding in this area, but can appear highly illogical to the rest of us. Similarly, there have been observations in the neurosciences that threaten to blow the lid off our notions of free will, etc, but they are highly controversial because they would require us to abandon our current understanding of what we are - they are illogical when viewed in the context of our current beliefs regarding human intelligence, etc.Doubtless you could counter that the underlying logic to which you allude has always existed, waiting for us to uncover it. However this leaves us in a position of never knowing which of our prevailing logical models of reality are likely to become invalidated by future observations of that reality.

If it's half positive, and half negative, why do you insist that an ultimate being/thing must have this as an attribute? Every answer you gave was your opinion. There's no reason to believe you, other than "you like it this way". I'm not struggling, I've said from the beginning that God should be a God of ultimate identity or else God is not the ultimate being/thing. It's the same arguement you're using for God being the God of ultimate power. Except, well, instead of half-positive and half-negative, I answer all-positive in favour of God having the attribute of ultimate identity.I also answer all negative for God having the attribute of ultimate power.So which is right? Why are your answers 'better' than mine? They are both opinion and equally valid. You're just saying yours are based on logic, but they are subjective concepts. The reason they are subjective is because they can't be based on logical or rational inferences. No matter how many times you type the word logical, you can't make a subjective concept into something objective. Until you acquire observations from the real world, your claims about the real world are merely opinions. I'm not claiming a third, you are, here:

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The definition of possibility to me has always been Something (A concept, prospect or potential), that has a capability of being true, happening or existing.

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Note that this is neither a possibility in imagination (it doesn't require anyone to imagine it) nor a possibility in reality (it's not required to actually exist).

You sure contend a lot. It's nice that you are willing to describe your beliefs, but simply asserting what you believe isn't science.- The perturbations of Uranus' orbit in the 19th century, the Michaelson-Morley experiment, the photoelectric effect, the fact that the ultraviolet catastrophe doesn't happen, and the discovery of high temperature superconducting ceramics are few things in the universe that confounded peoples' logical deductions.People had to redo their basic definitions and reformulate their premises in order to get their logic to match how the universe really is.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

I’m interested in your use of the term “natural probabilities”. Do you want to expand upon what you mean by that?

As has been discussed many times on this thread by several individuals, there is a difference between things that can be imagined to be possible and things that might actually be possible - a point you have made yourself on a number of occasions. If you wish to change your thesis to say it is your opinion that the god you define exists as a possibility, I can live with that, otherwise you need to bring something to the table that backs up your assertion that your opinion is anything more than that.Incidentally, do you agree that I am justified in refusing to accept the possibility that you can run at 100mph as a fact? It’s not a difficult question to answer. I’m sure you can find some time in your schedule to address it. Then let me take you by the hand and show you where you say just that. If you go to the end of the “ONE-SIDED ARGUMENT” section you will find the following sentence, “This of course is an impossible number, making the probability an impossibility.” There is nothing ambiguous about this statement, you declare the ”all heads’ scenario an impossibility, that is a possibility that has 0% chance. You have therefore assigned a specific value of 0%. Here’s the thing though. You may not be able to forget the sequence, but the independent event that is the flipping of a coin has no such memory. If you flip a coin it has a 50/50 chance of coming up heads regardless of where about in any sequence it is flipped. Flip it as the first flip - 50/50 chance, flip it as the millionth flip - 50/50 chance, flip it as the nth flip - 50/50 chance. If you were to randomly sample any coin flip from any sequence, no matter how short or long, the chance of a head is always 50/50.If I were to tell you that an infinitely long sequence of flips has taken place and were to ask you what the chances of the next flip in the sequence being a head are, what would your answer be? Have I given you enough information to answer the question, or do you require more?Incidentally, you might want to check out Message 222 if you haven’t already done so. Yip you got me on that one. Whether we choose to represent the possibilities as number of possible outcomes or probability of each outcome occurring is vitally important to the success of your thesis. As you have included my quote, I expect you have read it, if not understood it. I used the term “almost inevitable” because I understand that there is a difference between 0% chance and very small chance. Remember I don’t accept your premise that no sequence has 0% of occurring, but given that you do, you should be made aware that all possible sequences of coin tosses have exactly the same probability as any other. Therefore if you declare one such sequence impossible, you declare any sequence impossible as all sequences are equally probable.I wish you had told us you were not talking about “ordinary coins” when you used that analogy in your thesis. If you had told us they were special coins, we could have made some allowances for the ”logic’ that follows. So what makes these coins special? I could venture a guess or two but would rather you explained in your own words what makes the coins you have chosen for the analogy “not ordinary coins”. It’s not that funny, honest. One thing you have to remember is that this is a public forum, so whilst we generally address our replies to specific individuals, much of what we say if aimed at anybody who cares to read the thread. As such, I didn’t see any real need to answer your question as I trust that anybody following this thread is sufficiently able to understand the SUNLIGHT analogy as just that - an analogy.You may well choose to nominate the YES-SUNLIGHT possibility as the “dominant space”, but I would disagree. I’m no cosmologist, so I will bow to any superior authority on the subject if I am mistaken, but when I gaze at the night sky on a clear night, the predominant colour I see is black, interspersed with the light from many stars or galaxies. This tells me the “dominant space” in the observable universe is NO-SUNLIGHT. Lest we forget, you introduced the idea of possibility spaces. It’s not an idea I or various others on this thread have much time for, but we’re stuck with it. So I’ve no real idea what is going on inside your head when you say things like “spaces affected any other spaces”. What does this mean?A possibility is something that may or may not happen - you may choose to allocate it a possibility space. Whether it happens may or may not be dependant on another possibility - for which you may choose to allocate a second possibility space. In your world of possibility spaces, two of the spaces may be a) the god does not exist and b) the god created the universe - you have already stated both these possibilities in this thread. However you also assert that one a) cannot affect b). This is clearly nonsensical as, if a) is true, b) cannot be true. If b) cannot be true, it can no longer be a possibility; therefore it can no longer inhabit a possibility space.Moreover, we do not need to know whether a) is true. We only need to know that it might be true. We can no longer say that b) cannot be true, but we can say that the possibility that b) is true has been affected. Let me give you an example. If I were to examine the distribution of the adult population of the UK, I would find an approximate 50/50 split between male and female. The percentage of the adult population of the UK who are pregnant at this time will be a lot less, perhaps 5%. However if I decide to randomly pick the name of a UK adult from a hat, the probability that they are pregnant changes dependant on whether I have selected a male or female. If I’ve picked a male, the chance becomes 0%, if a female it will double to around 10%, or whatever. The point is that one possibility directly affects the other. Well at last we have something we can agree on - the god doesn’t exist in this universe. I only wish you’d stated at the start of your thesis that you wished to prove the hypothetical existence of a hypothetical entity in at least one of a hypothetically infinite number of hypothetical universes, we could have saved ourselves a whole lot of trouble. Oh come on, make your mind up. When I suggested I might be the god in an earlier post, you seemed less than impressed. Are you coming round to the idea now? I think I should warn you that I’m big on the not exercising all my powers part of your definition, so you probably wouldn’t recognize me for what I am if you ever ran in to me. Our superheroes can sometimes be such a disappointment to us, don’t you find? Absolutely not; perish the thought. Forgive me as I lapse into my best ”court room drama’ mode. I put it to you the only bit of your thesis that is important to you is your conclusion. I also put it to you that if you really think the objections to your definitions are due to misunderstandings of words or people being deliberately argumentative, you really need to stop being so defensive and start listening to what people are trying to say to you.

Dear Modulous,

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I don't follow. In your proof of the dependency of God and existence you say "As we proved earlier God is the only possible possibility, therefore we can see that God and possibility are themselves irreducibly dependent."

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You argued that my FIRST premise was that God is the only possible possibility, but this is actually the conlusion reached at the end of part two of my thesis.

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I argue that your premise to this proof (that God is the only possible possibility) is false. Are you suggesting that your thesis contradicts itself by saying that God is the only possible possibility and there are an infinite number of possibilities?

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No, what my thesis says is that out of all the infinite possibilities, a GOD possibility is certain to exist. "The evidence points to the fact that God is maximally probable. This means that at the most fundamental level God is really the ONLY POSSIBLE POSSIBILITY, and that any possibility that becomes actuality must therefore be a YES-GOD space by necessity".

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I understand what the ultimate being is in your imagination.

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It is not in my imagination. The definition is based on logic and observations of the real world.

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Is such an entity actually possible?

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Yes my thesis proves it.

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By this reality I mean in the reality that actually exists. God doesn't create reality, I use reality to encompass all that exists - which would include God.

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So reality is reality? that is meaningless! The definition of GOD I use certainly creates reality. So if reality encompasses all that exists which includes God, then GOD and existence are irreducibly dependent.

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There is only one reality that exists. Whatever the ultimate possible being can be, is constrained by whatever rules of reality exist. It is your burden to show that there are no limits within any rules that might exist (or to show that no rules exist!).

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Well the idea that only one reality exists is a belief, not a fact. In fact I show how there is a metaphysical existence in my thesis. I don't see why I have to show how there are no limits within any rules that might exist, as I am not arguing that there are no limits.

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More abstract entities. Try finding an infinite set of entities that can possibly exist.

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WHAT? WHY?

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Those objects in reality are not abstractions though. The numbers in an infinite set are abstractions from actual quantities in reality. If there is a limited number of quantifiable things in reality or their quantities can only take on a finite amount - then your infinite sets of numbers are not really real - they are just abstractions.

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Well I haven't read the book yet so I can't comment. But your example only works if you limit certain things.

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Yes I know you haven't said that. But you need to show that, otherwise you are in trouble.

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No I don't, and I don't see how.

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So there is no limit on the number of moves? If so, then is this not an infinite possibility space?

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It doesn't matter, the point is a possibility space can be many different variations. This example shows how a limited physical space can have unlimited possibilities.

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We're getting all confused.

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I am not.

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you have to show that God is a heads/tails type possibility

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Erm, much of my thesis talks about this exact thing.

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(one that can actually happen in this reality)

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"In ALL possibility spaces there is only ever ONE of TWO answers to ONE IMPORTANT QUESTION. The question is DOES GOD EXIST"?

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But actual possibilities still can't affect reality. They don't exist, they only possibly exist. They only exist if they exist. Unless they do, they can't affect anything.

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Now your changing you own definition of actual possibilities, because you said awhile ago, "hypothetical possibilities do not have any bearing on actuality . Only actual possibilities would qualify".You first claimed that actual possibilities have a bearing on actuality (which is reality), now you claim they don't.

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If you want to assume that a possibility space exists within which God exists, then you are just assuming God exists.

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I am also assuming GOD doesn't exist too, so all your arguments (if you think they are really valid) must also apply to that possibility also.

Dear dogrelata,

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Much of what we now consider to be logical is done with the benefit of hindsight. Even then we frequently add labels such as counter-intuitive. This is because we observe things that sometimes defy the prevailing logic of the time, which forces us to re-appraise what is logical. Some of the stuff that is being observed in the world of quantum mechanics appears logical to those who have an understanding in this area, but can appear highly illogical to the rest of us.

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But the universe is always logical it has nothing to do with us.

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Similarly, there have been observations in the neurosciences that threaten to blow the lid off our notions of free will, etc, but they are highly controversial because they would require us to abandon our current understanding of what we are - they are illogical when viewed in the context of our current beliefs regarding human intelligence, etc.

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Interesting, but we don't have free will anyway, I can tell you that now, we only have freedom of choice.

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However this leaves us in a position of never knowing which of our prevailing logical models of reality are likely to become invalidated by future observations of that reality.

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Well that's science for you.

Dear Stile,

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If it's half positive, and half negative, why do you insist that an ultimate being/thing must have this as an attribute?

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For the reasons I have already given in this topic.

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Every answer you gave was your opinion. There's no reason to believe you, other than "you like it this way".

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Nope, all answers were based on logic.

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I'm not struggling, I've said from the beginning that God should be a God of ultimate identity or else God is not the ultimate being/thing.

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But you haven't given a reason why. I even gave you a list of questions to qualify the attribute, which you have yet to answer.

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It's the same arguement you're using for God being the God of ultimate power.

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It clearly isn't.

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I answer all-positive in favour of God having the attribute of ultimate identity.

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If you answer positive to the question 2. Does this quality conlfict with any other qualities? How do you resolve this problem?

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I also answer all negative for God having the attribute of ultimate power.

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Can you give logical arguments for why?

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I'm not claiming a third, you are,

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You really are unbelievable, my definition is the original definition, it was you who then split the definition into 2 meanings. Not only that but my definition can include both imagination and reality. Because of this there is really only one definition of possibility, and it is the definition I use.And you still haven't answered the question, "Before any reality existed, was there a possibility of it existing"?

Dear Chiroptera,

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You sure contend a lot. It's nice that you are willing to describe your beliefs, but simply asserting what you believe isn't science.

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That's funny because you asserted that "Logic is simply a set of rules that humans have developed to help us keep our thought processes orderly", I responded to a belief with a belief. But I notice you didn't disagree with the fact, "our thought processes are orderly from the start, our thoughts determine how we order things".

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The perturbations of Uranus' orbit in the 19th century, the Michaelson-Morley [sic](Michelson-Morley ) experiment, the photoelectric effect, the fact that the ultraviolet catastrophe doesn't happen, and the discovery of high temperature superconducting ceramics are few things in the universe that confounded peoples' logical deductions.

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Well you didn't quite answer the question I was asking but no matter, as your answer demontrates the point I wanted to get to anyway.The examples you give are based on human fallibility, the perturbations of Uranus was due to experimental error for example. But the point is, if your starting assumptions are wrong then whatever the final outcome is will tend to be wrong as well. For example, most scientists assume that gravity is the force that keeps everything together, it doesn't even cross their minds that maybe it's another force like the electromagnetic force. Whatever the true nature of the universe is, it is always logical. Infact this forum argues two different world views, evolution or creation, and all scientists assume one or the other, but both have differing views on the nature of the universe, and so maybe all seemigly illogical behaviors of the universe are based on an erroneous world view.

Dear dogrelata,

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I’m interested in your use of the term “natural probabilities”. Do you want to expand upon what you mean by that?

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Not really. But the natural probability would be 1 in 3, but the host messes it up and forces the odds because he will know which door not to open, which changes the odds, "This change in the host's behavior causes the car to be twice as likely to be behind the "third door", and is what causes switching to be twice as likely to win in the "host knows" variation of the problem."

Dear dogrelata,

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As has been discussed many times on this thread by several individuals, there is a difference between things that can be imagined to be possible and things that might actually be possible - a point you have made yourself on a number of occasions.

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Not me, I have only ever claimed that possibility means what the definition in my thesis says. Besides both are still examples of possibilities.

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Incidentally, do you agree that I am justified in refusing to accept the possibility that you can run at 100mph as a fact? It’s not a difficult question to answer. I’m sure you can find some time in your schedule to address it.

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Well if I was on a train going at 100mph, then I got up and ran on the spot, would you argee I was technically running at 100mph?

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Then let me take you by the hand and show you where you say just that. If you go to the end of the “ONE-SIDED ARGUMENT” section you will find the following sentence, “This of course is an impossible number, making the probability an impossibility.” There is nothing ambiguous about this statement, you declare the ”all heads’ scenario an impossibility, that is a possibility that has 0% chance. You have therefore assigned a specific value of 0%.

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It's funny but I still do not see 0% in the sentence you quoted. Maybe it is you who is assigning specific values to things. You cannot assign any percentage to infinity, because it is impossible to divide infinity into anything.

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Here’s the thing though. You may not be able to forget the sequence, but the independent event that is the flipping of a coin has no such memory. If you flip a coin it has a 50/50 chance of coming up heads regardless of where about in any sequence it is flipped. Flip it as the first flip - 50/50 chance, flip it as the millionth flip - 50/50 chance, flip it as the nth flip - 50/50 chance. If you were to randomly sample any coin flip from any sequence, no matter how short or long, the chance of a head is always 50/50.

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Even though memory has nothing to do with anything, it's actually mathematics that determine the rules. But lets go with what you say for the moment. Please tell me what would normally and naturally happen without any special circumstances, if we were to flip 100 coins with individual probabilities of 50/50, how many heads would there be and how many tails would there be?

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As you have included my quote, I expect you have read it, if not understood it. I used the term “almost inevitable” because I understand that there is a difference between 0% chance and very small chance. Remember I don’t accept your premise that no sequence has 0% of occurring, but given that you do, you should be made aware that all possible sequences of coin tosses have exactly the same probability as any other. Therefore if you declare one such sequence impossible, you declare any sequence impossible as all sequences are equally probable.

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you're absolutely wrong, in a 50/50 scenario it is more likely that an even distribution will occur more than any other sequence given an ever increasing amount.

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I wish you had told us you were not talking about “ordinary coins” when you used that analogy in your thesis. If you had told us they were special coins, we could have made some allowances for the ”logic’ that follows. So what makes these coins special? I could venture a guess or two but would rather you explained in your own words what makes the coins you have chosen for the analogy “not ordinary coins”.

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The whole of part two of my thesis explains this.

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You may well choose to nominate the YES-SUNLIGHT possibility as the “dominant space”, but I would disagree. I’m no cosmologist, so I will bow to any superior authority on the subject if I am mistaken, but when I gaze at the night sky on a clear night, the predominant colour I see is black, interspersed with the light from many stars or galaxies. This tells me the “dominant space” in the observable universe is NO-SUNLIGHT.

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Now your changing the definitions, you originally said of you possibility spaces, "Put plainly, these two conditions refer to whether any part of the natural world as we know it comes into contact with sunlight. An underground cave into which no sunlight can penetrate would be a NO-SUNLIGHT condition. YES-SUNLIGHT conditions would apply to any part of the globe onto which the sun shines during the day. During the hours of darkness, these same YES-SUNLIGHT conditions will become NO-SUNLIGHT conditions".However you define your YES or NO SUNLIGHT space, it is defined based on the SUN, which is only present in the YES-SUNLIGHT space, that's what is meant by the dominant space.Also if we take your definition, "any part of the natural world(universe) as we know it comes into contact with sunlight" and your latest argument, "interspersed with the light from many stars or galaxies", then the universe itself is clearly a YES-SUNLIGHT space.

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Lest we forget, you introduced the idea of possibility spaces. It’s not an idea I or various others on this thread have much time for, but we’re stuck with it. So I’ve no real idea what is going on inside your head when you say things like “spaces affected any other spaces”. What does this mean?

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If you don't understand something, why try to argue against it, you first need to understand what it is you are arguing. If you don't understand something please ask.Affected means to act on or produce an effect or change in, or to influence, or to modify, or to alter.

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However you also assert that one a) cannot affect b).

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Erm, no I don't.

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Well at last we have something we can agree on - the god doesn’t exist in this universe

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I hope this was a misreading on your part, because my thesis proves that GOD does exist in this universe.

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Oh come on, make your mind up. When I suggested I might be the god in an earlier post, you seemed less than impressed. Are you coming round to the idea now? I think I should warn you that I’m big on the not exercising all my powers part of your definition, so you probably wouldn’t recognize me for what I am if you ever ran in to me. Our superheroes can sometimes be such a disappointment to us, don’t you find?

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Actually I was showing that you can be God in YOUR OWN possibility spaces, however you still can't control ALL possibility spaces, ALMIGHTY GOD would be the only one that is capable of that. Humans can indeed be Gods, just not the ultimate GOD.

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I put it to you the only bit of your thesis that is important to you is your conclusion.

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Well this can be shown not to be true, as half of this topic was based Solely on the definition of GOD.

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I also put it to you that if you really think the objections to your definitions are due to misunderstandings of words or people being deliberately argumentative, you really need to stop being so defensive and start listening to what people are trying to say to you.

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Well I haven't really been defensive, I have merely pointed out inconsistences, illogical arguments, and mistakes made by critics.

Actually, no. The perturbations were due to the existence of the previously unknown planet Neptune and its gravitational effects. Based on what was known before the discovery of Neptune, the seven known (at that time) planets, Newton's Laws of Motion, and the Law of Gravity, scientists logically concluded that Uranus had to follow a particular orbit. It didn't. That is because their premises were wrong: there weren't only seven planets, there was an eighth as well.And this is my main point. Logic cannot lead us to specific knowledge about the world, because logic depends on the premises and we can never be certain that our premises are correct. The conclusions must always be checked against reality; the scientists of the 19th century knew this. That's why they did experiments and made observations. If they simply trusted their logical conclusions, then they would have just said, "This is what the orbit of Uranus looks like," and they wouldn't have bothered to check it. But they did check it because they realized that their logical results might be limited by their incomplete understanding of their premises, and it's a good thing that they did.This is why I don't trust logical "proofs" of the existence of God. I don't trust the premises. I don't trust any set of premises or theoretical framework until its conclusions can be checked by observations in the real world.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

And you seem to rely on this conclusion as a premise to your 'proof' of the irreducible dependency of god and existence. If it isn't. Please illuminate me by showing me the premises of your argument. So we agree then that "God is the only possible possibility" is false? As stated above, if you could reword your argument so it doesn't contain this statement perhaps I will understand you better. So you have observed the ultimate possible being? No, it doesn't. It proves that if God exists, God exists. You haven't shown that God is actually possible in this reality. I can't say much more than this in comment because you didn't give me much substance to reply to. How is it meaningless? God cannot create reality, because God wouldn't exist in reality if reality doesn't exist. Therefore since God does not exist in reality, God does not exist. If there is a metaphysical existence, it is part of reality as I defined it (everything that exists) if other entities exist (those things you call realities), then they are part of what I call reality. Otherwise it isn't real. If you are arguing that God isn't real - I agree. If you want to concede that an infinite amount of possibilities might not actually exist, that's fine by me. Correct. So you need to show that there are no limits on those certain things. If you want to concede that there is no reason to believe you when you assert otherwise that's fine by me too. Of course it matters. If there is only a finite move number, then there are not unlimited possibilities. What has physical space got to do with possibility space? If there is finite space, and an infinite quantity of moves, I'd agree that there is infinite possibilities; but this would not be a finite possibility space, which is what we were talking about. You don't show it, you just state it. And in ALL possibility spaces there is only ever ONE of TWO answers to the ONE QUESTION. The question is "when I flip a coin does it land heads up or collapse into a black hole, emit 10¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰ carbon atoms at 400 times the speed of light, with a rest mass of -4tonnes whilst composing 100 years worth of European classical music?"One of them isn't actually possible though is it? The way I was thinking of actual possibilities having bearing on reality was meant to be straightforward, but evidently it was simply confusing. Actual possibilities might possibly manifest in reality. Hypothetical possibilities, if they aren't also actual, won't do this.However, just because it is possible that a being that can influence possibility could exist, that being cannot influence possibility if it doesn't actually exist. It will only be able to do so, if it is not just a possibility but an actuality. If God doesn't exist, then your thesis simply concludes that God does not exist. If you want me to go through it and prove that I will. A quick taster: if God does not exist, then it is not possible for God to exist (by definition), therefore all the possibility spaces have NO-GOD in them.An argument cannot assume two contradictory things and reach a single answer.

Okay, if you really need this, here it is: Yes, leaving no confusion to the 'possibility' of His existence is ultimate identity. Because leaving no confusion to the possibility is better than leaving no confusion to the actuality, it covers more ground. No, this quality does not conflict with any of the other qualities. It's simply an addition. An addition that any ultimate being/thing would require. It does not affect feedom of choice since the ultimate being can simply remove confusion of it's existence from those who want such confusion to be removed. This quality assumes nothing. It only states that an ultimate being would leave no question as it's identity to anyone who was confused about the ultimate being. An ultimate being who isn't afraid of being identified by those searching for it is better than a being who can't be identified. Because an ultimate being who isn't afraid of being identified by those searching for it is better than a being who is afraid or unable to identify itself. Certainly. There is no logical contradiction. There really is confusion as to the possibility of God's existence. This very post (and entire thread, and likely the whole forum) shows that this is the case. Because if He can't, then He's not the ultimate being/thing. Because if He can't, then He's not the ultimate being/thing. Because if it wasn't a God of ultimate identity, then it wouldn't be the ultimate possible being/thing. Of course. Trivially easy. Here we go again: No. Power can be measured in many different ways. The most power at anything isn't always the best. The most powerful tractor is useless in making the best tasting ice-cream cone. Being the most powerful of everything is useless if the goal is to do nothing. Yes. Being the most powerful evil force in the world certainly conflicts with absolute love and supreme justice. Being the most powerful force of removing freedom of choice certainly affects freedom of choice. No. There's no requirement for us to know that God is all powerful or not because there's not even a requirement for God to be all powerful. As shown by many Gods people believe in who are not all powerful. There's no reason why a God of ultimate power would be better than a God without it. We need to identify a goal first. If the goal is to be the strongest and fastest, or containing the most energy, then a God of ultimate power would be better. But if the goal is to be the smallest and slowest, or contain the least energy, then a God of ultimate power is the worst thing desired. No. Infinite power does not exist in this reality, as shown by the impossibility of perpetual motion machines. There is no need for ultimate power, it is soley based on unfounded subjective desires that stronger and more powerful is somehow better. This isn't always the case. Sometimes smaller and weaker is what's required. He shouldn't, because being all powerful isn't always better. He shouldn't, because being all powerful is sometimes the opposite of what's required. No reason. An ultimate possible being/thing could be the ultimate possible weakest being. This would most certainly not need to have ultimate power.Don't you see that these arguements are all subjective? The very fact that we're arguing over them proves that they are subjective. There is no reason to suggest one over the other. It's the same about arguing over our favourite colours. Without observations of the real world, we cannot show or prove attributes of the real world, including existence. I didn't answer because the answer is obvious. Of course the possibility existed. We are here now, obviously. But it's also obvious that this possibility wasn't a part of reality (because reality didn't exist yet) and there's no requirement for it to be a possibility in any being's imagination.

I do find it an interesting insight that you consider the initial probability of 1/3 becomes ”messed up’ by what the host knows and does. In my humble opinion, what the problem is all about is the processing of knowledge with regard to what it tells us about the probabilities of something happening, i.e. as we observe real events, the various related probabilities associated with that event can and do change.In the real world, as we make observations and start to gather knowledge, the idea that ”all possibilities’ should remain equally probable in the light of these observations makes no sense to me. The ”natural probabilities’ to which you allude are surely no more than a hypothetical starting point, which becomes less and less relevant with each subsequent observation. Failure to take into account what is observed when attempting to prove anything using ”natural probabilities’ seems doomed from the start, leading to a hypothetical conclusion that bears no resemblance to what is actually observed.