Modal ontological argument: open for discussion and defense

Any chair which was maximally great would not need to rely on matter or space to exist.

Is a person who lives a long life necessarily "greater" than someone who lives a short life?

I am aware of that. But a noumenon necessarily has physical characteristics, which can be observed as phenomenon. 

Imagine two comic book characters... contigent man and Doctor Necessary.  Contigent man could easily be killed,  he has the potential for non existence.  But doctor necessary cannot be destroyed.  He never came into being and will never go out of being. 

I think which is greater in this case is self evident

In order for a being to be eternally intelligible it would need an eternal human who needed it and was capable of standing in awe from eternity past.

In other words, what makes the very concept of "beingness" intelligible in the first place, is quite frankly,  human tushies. Without a person to stand in awe before it, the essence of a being becomes unintelligible 

the very telos of a being is to appear superior to a human.

I mean,  what is a being? A being by definition has legs and a back,  as well as a place to sit.  I don't see how we can keep those definitions in tact while upholding said being is immaterial. Does this being have immaterial legs? A back not extended in space? Is it made of non physical flesh? 

I'm arguing for a non physical conscious entity. The statement "a being by definition has a back and legs" not only assumes the only beings that exist are bipeds with a torso (sorry caterpillars)  but is simply not what I'm arguing 

I think Flrw had the best objection and I will respond to him lastly..

...I hope they thought so too. 

1. No-maximality is possibly exemplified.

2. If no-maximality is possibly exemplified, then maximal greatness is impossible.

3. So maximal greatness is impossible.

So Plantinga himself, tells us how his argument can fail.

In all seriousness,  this is QUITE a leap. This wouldn't even apply to humans. Would you fail to exist,  or have your existence rendered unintelligible if you were the only being on the planet and nobody else existed to admire you? That just doesn't make sense.  God's existence is not contigent on or sustained by our adoration. Really nobody's existence is.

But no, it isn't.  The telos of a chair is to seat things. The telos of being is to be.

I'm arguing for a non physical conscious entity. The statement "a being by definition has a back and legs" not only assumes the only beings that exist are bipeds with a torso (sorry caterpillars)  but is simply not what I'm arguing 

There's nothing in maximal greatness that would be logically or metaphysically incoherent or contradictory,

Soluminsanis  9 to drafterman

A contingent being is one whose explanation for its existence is found in an outside or prior entity. You and I are contigent beings,   our explanation for existence is found in a prior being or state of affairs.

A necessary being however, is a being whose existence is not explained by a prior or outside reality, but one whose existence is explained in its own nature. It exists because it is existence. Not because it was actualized by a prior cause.

Soluminsanis 40 to FLRW

I think you're employing an unnecessary amount of agnosticism in regards to each premise.

If we're talking about metaphysical possibility as opposed to epistemic possibility, then all that would be required for any concept to go through is it being logical coherent. Probability doesn't necessarily play a role.

Soluminsanis 42 to 3RU7AL

So let's think about possible worlds and the idea of a maximally great chair.   

In order for an mgc to exist in all possible worlds,   several things would need to be true. 

The chair itself would have to exemplify maximal greatness. 

The chair would have to exist across all possible worlds. 

This simply isn't possible though. 

We can imagine several possible worlds where the space time continuum either doesn't exist or is dramatically different.   If there exists a possible world where no space exists,   then we cannot have a mgc in that world because there is no space for the matter of the chair to be extended into.

The argument in principle applies to any necessary being, including those with loathsome properties. However, since the actual number of necessary beings appears to be low, somehow most set of properties make such beings impossible.

The only difference between the original and this parody is the first premise. It is clear that a necessary chair is impossible because we know what a chair is. Since we don't know what an MGB is supposed to be, it is harder to come up reasons why it cannot exist.

Hence the reasoning is : We don't know what we are talking about. Therefore, we can't find any reason why it would be impossible. Therefore, it must be possible.