Original Post
Thoughts on omniscience
It's probably my favorite "toy" for mental masturbation, and i think i even made a thread on this in the old debate.
I'm currently talking about it with philosophy buffs who will probably end up serving me my ass at the end.
Here is the discussion: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/t...nce-38149.html
Basically here is what I think:
If a being is truly omniscient (and designer of the universe on top of that), it knows the outcome of every single action to ever occur. It has personally set the pendulum of causality in motion as it forged the initial condition out of nothing, long time ago. It made every decision of every human. But I digress.
My main idea is that real omniscience would require no active mind....There are no questions, no calculations, no unexpectedness, no decisions to be made -- all is already known and designed to follow a pattern which satisfies god's innate divine whim (which is the only thing that he didn't design, i guess, which means he didn't design everything after all).
Does this state of mind not resemble a sort of nullity? All motivation dies when one acquires absolute knowledge. Imagine if you knew everything completely, even yourself. You would probably become suicidal, since nothing at all could entertain your mind or keep it active. The outside sources would be dried out; all information would be absorbed in your big head.
What's more, why would existence (or lack of existence) of such god matter in any way, to anyone?
His existence would mean all actions are predestined, even his own (by presence of his innate divine desire to shape existence one way or the other).
I'm currently talking about it with philosophy buffs who will probably end up serving me my ass at the end.
Here is the discussion: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/t...nce-38149.html
Basically here is what I think:
If a being is truly omniscient (and designer of the universe on top of that), it knows the outcome of every single action to ever occur. It has personally set the pendulum of causality in motion as it forged the initial condition out of nothing, long time ago. It made every decision of every human. But I digress.
My main idea is that real omniscience would require no active mind....There are no questions, no calculations, no unexpectedness, no decisions to be made -- all is already known and designed to follow a pattern which satisfies god's innate divine whim (which is the only thing that he didn't design, i guess, which means he didn't design everything after all).
Does this state of mind not resemble a sort of nullity? All motivation dies when one acquires absolute knowledge. Imagine if you knew everything completely, even yourself. You would probably become suicidal, since nothing at all could entertain your mind or keep it active. The outside sources would be dried out; all information would be absorbed in your big head.
What's more, why would existence (or lack of existence) of such god matter in any way, to anyone?
His existence would mean all actions are predestined, even his own (by presence of his innate divine desire to shape existence one way or the other).
Last edited by Odlov; Nov 30, 2009 at 05:02 AM.
I replied to that proposition too.
I guess they were arguing against my claim that omniscience =/= death of all cognitive activity. Basically they proposed that god only perceived 1 chunk of information at a time, while all other knowledge was not in the spotlight of it's consciousness. Kind of like me knowing who the 3d US president was, but rarely bringing that knowledge up.
I don't really buy that, though.
But yeah. omniscience is death of all motivation.
Yes i was talking about god (since it's the only omniscient concept people could relate to), sorry if it wasn't clear enough.
I guess they were arguing against my claim that omniscience =/= death of all cognitive activity. Basically they proposed that god only perceived 1 chunk of information at a time, while all other knowledge was not in the spotlight of it's consciousness. Kind of like me knowing who the 3d US president was, but rarely bringing that knowledge up.
I don't really buy that, though.
But yeah. omniscience is death of all motivation.
Originally Posted by hydrotoxin
@Odlov
If a being is omniscient and omnipotent, then everything you have said makes perfect sense philosophically. But, you did not mention omnipotence. If a being is merely omniscient, then they are only aware of all occuring possibilities within a universe, but has no control over them unless they act on their infinite knowledge- however, even this does not indicate the ability to begin causality. For instance, if you or I were all-knowing beings, we would certainly become bored quite quickly, as the entire scope of human experience is based on acquiring knowledge. Certainly, suicide would be a strong possibility. However, it appears as though you are speaking from the perspective of a god, who is omniscient but not necessarily omnipotent or omnipresent. Therefore, one can assume that merely knowing everything does, in fact, nullify any significance of that person without the presence of the other two "omni's". And such a being would not, by his existence alone, indicate that all actions are predestined, but rather that an immense number of possibilities within possibilities are predestined. Think of this hypothetical being as a chess player. The greatest chessmasters can predict moves far before their opponent makes them- but this does not necessarily indicate that those moves will, in fact, happen. Rather, it is indicative of the chessmaster's ability to preprognosticate, which can be projected onto our hypothetical being, albeit to a far greater extent.
Hope this provided some insight.
Yes i was talking about god (since it's the only omniscient concept people could relate to), sorry if it wasn't clear enough.
Last edited by Odlov; Nov 30, 2009 at 05:20 AM.
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