still arguing with Descartes

In his Third Meditation, Descartes argues that existence cannot be separated from the essence of God, because God is perfection and it is more perfect to exist out of the intellect as well as in, and because God possesses this necessary quality of existence, God must exist. Descartes compares the quality of existence in God to the quality of having three angles that equal 180 degrees in a triangle.

This is a misleading analogy because of the two examples, only the triangle works both ways. If one refers to the quality of having three angles that equal 180 degrees you are necessarily talking about a triangle; that is its definition and works both ways. 180 degrees implies traingle.

However, existence does not necessarily imply God, because I have certainly determined that I exist (by the cogito), but just because I exist does not mean that I am God.

Therefore the analogy is false, and the quality of 180 degrees in a triangle is even less separable than existence in God because a triangle is the only being with three angles equaling 180 degrees but God is not the only being that exists.

(Hitchcock 421, 2.20.06)