The so-called omnimax attributes

[Betterave]

Originally Posted by Betterave
I’d say that’s an easy one Spock: the omniscient guy tells a third party his prediction, not you; that way you can’t cheat (unless you’re ‘omniscient’ too), he can’t cheat, and ‘omniscience’ is demonstrated (not really, of course, but at least very nice omniscient guy passes your test).

The trouble is that I am very skeptical. I do not accept the testimony of this third party. I suspect that they are in it together, and therefore the testimony is not acceptable. You could have made up a different scenario, where the omniscient guy writes down his prediction and seals the envelope. I would not accept that either. It is easy to have many envelopes prepared, and any competent stage magician can assure that the “correct one” will be presented as evidence. If he would give the envelope directly to me, I would open it immediately.

In this case I only accept the one and only evidence, presented to me beforehand, so I can be absolutely assured of the prediction. No other method is acceptable. And then I will invoke my free will and make sure that the prediction fails. Cool, isn’t it?

Very cool. But perhaps you’re not being skeptical enough. What makes you think you can trust your own memory? Maybe you’ll forget what the prediction was or misremember it and the omniscient guy will be right after all (of course he will be - he’s omniscient!), even though *you *think he is wrong. Cool huh? Or if you’re a relatively dogmatic sceptic:thumbsup: and can’t accept this scenario, we can of course say that you do remember nice omniscient guy’s prediction, but only *after *you have *already *freely, though unwittingly, proven that he is ‘omniscient’ (again, not really, but at least he passes your test).

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I don’t even understand this. The yesterday’s “me” is different from today’s “me”. Yesterday’s “me” does not exist any more - in any meaningful sense of “existence”. Tomorrow’s “me” does not exist yet.

what yesterday? what today? and what tommorow? there seems to be only now. to wit, arbitrarily picking some points in the order of change and saying from this point, to this point i no longer exist here, or here, but i do here seems a little fanciful to me. what makes you think that?

Time (whetever it is physically) is real. It is part of the Einsteinian world. To say that “everything happens” now is an unintelligible gobbledegook as far as I am concerned.

frankly, there is no evidence that time is “real”. it seems to simply be a subjective measuring stick we apply to change. if it is real, what evidence can you present?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

This is somewhat questionable. Since the world is not static, it constantly changes, therefore the the “knowledge” about it must change, too.

But your point is very important. Would omniscience include the knowledge of not-yet-happened events? And this is the whole problem. Something that has not happened yet, is not actual, rather a potential. If it is just a potential, it cannot be known - in the full sense of the word. It can be guessed, or surmised, or hypothesized, but cannot be known.

I recall that you have some difficulties with the idea of God being outside time, but I assure you He has no such difficulties. For an omnipotent and unchanging being, to know what is happening (what you have caused) is to know everything that “has happened” and “will” happen. Knowledge of all change is included in this knowledge.

Yet, some events can be “known”, even if they have not happened yet - where “known” is not used rigorously, rather in the colloquial sense. If the event is governed by fully determisitic laws, and a full picture of “today” can be known, then the future event can be said to be “knowable”. The trouble is that there are very few (if any) fully deterministic events. For example: mathematically any model of weather prediction includes non-linear functions, and such functions are very “volatile” to the starting conditions. This is known as the butterfly effect. A very minor change in the starting condition can result in huge fluctuation.

Surely it is not outrageous to say that a computer programmer could know and predict the behavior of his program?

And this brings up another point: can the present be fully known? The Hesienberg uncertainty principle says: no. Not even the present can be fully known. So where does that leave omniscience?

This is a problem of measurement, not knowledge.

 

[mmapplah]

As soon as he makes the prediction, I will purposefully not do what he predicts. If he says that I will roll in exactly 3 minues, I will not roll in three minutes. If he predicts that I will roll with my right hand, I will deliberately roll with my left hand, etc

Ah, Spock…such an interesting person you seem to be.

Here’s what I think.

Existence is deterministic. What will be will be, hands down. And just because chaos theory veils humans from being able to determine everything that will be, that doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

The future cannot be known, because “knowing” the future puts you in a curious position of being quite able to change it. But if you can change the future, then that’s not really the future, is it. So I say the future is an absolute.

Now for that paradox of having an all-knowing god guess the dice. That’s not really a paradox, because if I were a god, I would not fall for petty human attempts at tripping me up. No sir.

You see, I wouldn’t be a stupid god, I’m omniscient, after all. I know that if I predicted one thing, I can see that you’d, say, do the opposite just to spite me, and I know that if I told you that you’re going to spite me by doing the opposite, you’re going to do it the expected way. I’m no fool — I can see every trick the limited mind of the human can mix up. And I, better than any computer ever to be designed by man, can whip up a solution to this ‘‘paradox’’ pretty darn fast. And perhaps what I might realize is that by telling you the future, you therefore have the power to change it…but I know the future that WILL happen as a result of telling you that. You see, I’m omnipotent.

PS - God would be only exception to determinism, due to his external influence abilities upon the natural universe.

 

[Spirithound]

Let’s finish up my previous question: “what does it mean that omniscience includes the knowledge of a never-happened event?”. I think that would be total nonsense. Something that never happened and will never happen, simply cannot be “known”. Do you agree with that?

I think I agree with this.

And that brings up another real problem. As far as we are concerned, the future is only a set of unrealized potentials, it is not actual. So, in order to make omniscience plausible, you have to discard this concept, and must assert that there is no past, present and future, everything is actual. That is contradicted by all of our assumptions about reality. Moreover, it leads to a logical contradiction. Namely: if something does not exist from our point of view, yet it exists from the omniscient beings point of view, then the same thing both exists and not exists depending on the perspective.

Everything is actual only to the Omniscient Being. This does not lead to a logical contradiction. If something exists in the POV of the Omniscient Being, but it does not exist in my POV, then clearly it exists, but my knowledge is too limited to see it.

In this case I only accept the one and only evidence, presented to me beforehand, so I can be absolutely assured of the prediction. No other method is acceptable. And then I will invoke my free will and make sure that the prediction fails. Cool, isn’t it?

Nice try
However, the Omniscient Being saw this coming, and tells you that you will not throw the dice, and he zaps you with a lightning bolt instead.

I suspect this is why Jesus said it is not for us to know the time and the place.

 

[Spirithound]

Something that never happened and will never happen, simply cannot be “known”.

You see, I wouldn’t be a stupid god, I’m omniscient, after all.

However, the Omniscient Being saw this coming, and tells you that you will not throw the dice, and he zaps you with a lightning bolt instead.

In light of the assertion that the Omniscient Being could foresee an event like this and avoid it, we may have to amend our idea of what can be known.

So, if the OB does not accept your game (let’s say he just isn’t feeling sociable at the moment), then does the event “you (trying to) outsmart the OB” really exist? Perhaps he read your mind, but say that you were initially going to play by his rules, but suddenly saw an opportunity, so he didn’t read your mind beforehand. Might we then have to say that Omniscience also covers things that are potential through one or more untaken choices? Is that the same as the initial choice Spock offered?

Or, do we simply dismiss Spock’s thought experiment as constructing an event that could never happen? ie, God simply does not play games?

 

[Betterave]

In light of the assertion that the Omniscient Being could foresee an event like this and avoid it, we may have to amend our idea of what can be known.

So, if the OB does not accept your game (let’s say he just isn’t feeling sociable at the moment), then does the event “you (trying to) outsmart the OB” really exist? Perhaps he read your mind, but say that you were initially going to play by his rules, but suddenly saw an opportunity, so he didn’t read your mind beforehand. Might we then have to say that Omniscience also covers things that are potential through one or more untaken choices? Is that the same as the initial choice Spock offered?

Or, do we simply dismiss Spock’s thought experiment as constructing an event that could never happen? ie, God simply does not play games?

God doesn’t play games? You make it sound like He’s a mobster! For all we know , God actually loves Spock and He’s just waiting for Spock to see the light and love Him in return. Anyway, for now at least Spock is on his way to discovering the intelligibility of certain concepts which he had thought were unintelligible…hopefully! I think his proposed game can be useful for that purpose and we’ll see where we go from there.

 

[Spock]

Very cool. But perhaps you’re not being skeptical enough. What makes you think you can trust your own memory? Maybe you’ll forget what the prediction was or misremember it and the omniscient guy will be right after all (of course he will be - he’s omniscient!), even though *you *think he is wrong. Cool huh? Or if you’re a relatively dogmatic sceptic:thumbsup: and can’t accept this scenario, we can of course say that you do remember nice omniscient guy’s prediction, but only *after *you have *already *freely, though unwittingly, proven that he is ‘omniscient’ (again, not really, but at least he passes your test).

Yes, we are getting to somewhere. We all must start with a few basic principles, namely: “I exist”, “whatever I experience is real”, “my mind functions weill”, “what I remember is correct”, etc… You posit an impossible scenario. In order to refute my little thought experiment, you say that I cannot know in I am sane, or if this omniscient guy was manipulating my memory. (You recall, I am sure the old saying: “you should keep an open mind, but not too open, lest it should fall out”.)

You see, I did not posit any “special characteristics” in my scenario, only “omniscience”. Looks like that omniscience cannot not stand on its own feet, it needs some other “powers” to overcome the paradox I presented. And that is called changing the goalposts. Let’s stick to the problem at hand, omniscience is assumed, but nothing else. If omniscience cannot be substantiated on its own merit, then it is an unintelligible proposition.

 

[Spock]

what yesterday? what today? and what tommorow? there seems to be only now. to wit, arbitrarily picking some points in the order of change and saying from this point, to this point i no longer exist here, or here, but i do here seems a little fanciful to me. what makes you think that?

frankly, there is no evidence that time is “real”. it seems to simply be a subjective measuring stick we apply to change. if it is real, what evidence can you present?

If it is so “subjective”, then you should explain, just how is it possible that we all “suffer” from the same illusion. You also should explain why is our seemingly illusionary “memory” happen to “seem” to coincide with each other. To say that there is no “past, present and future”, we live in an eternal “now” does no lead anywhere. That everything is just an illusion leads to solipsism - which is an untenable proposition.

 

[Spock]

I recall that you have some difficulties with the idea of God being outside time, but I assure you He has no such difficulties. For an omnipotent and unchanging being, to know what is happening (what you have caused) is to know everything that “has happened” and “will” happen. Knowledge of all change is included in this knowledge.

I am not talking about God, or being outside of time. Only about omniscience. There are no other assumptions in this hypothesis. If additional “criteria” are needed, then omniscience cannot be analyzed on its own merit. Besides, being “outside” of time does not help. The spectator of a movie is outside of the movie’s time, and still cannot know what the ending will be, until it actually happens.

Surely it is not outrageous to say that a computer programmer could know and predict the behavior of his program?

Yes, indeed. You can see this in many manuals (from IBM, for example) where they say: “in such circumstances the program produces unpredictable results”. Now this can be due to the limitations of the programmers, but the computer program is a supposed to be a deterministic entity, and not a stochastic one. We can predict statistically how many uranium atoms will decay in a specific interval, but cannot predict “which ones” will decay. The radioactive decay is not a deterministic process, rather a stochastic one. But there is a deeper problem here, too. If we are “programmed” to perform, then free will is just an illusion.

This is a problem of measurement, not knowledge.

And how does one obtain knowledge? By obtaining information via some means. Whether one calls it a “measurement” or something else, if the phenomenon itself is impossible to “measure”, then it cannot be known.

 

[Spock]

Ah, Spock…such an interesting person you seem to be.

Here’s what I think.

Existence is deterministic. What will be will be, hands down. And just because chaos theory veils humans from being able to determine everything that will be, that doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

The future cannot be known, because “knowing” the future puts you in a curious position of being quite able to change it. But if you can change the future, then that’s not really the future, is it. So I say the future is an absolute.

Which boils down to the lack of free will.

Now for that paradox of having an all-knowing god guess the dice. That’s not really a paradox, because if I were a god, I would not fall for petty human attempts at tripping me up. No sir.

You see, I wouldn’t be a stupid god, I’m omniscient, after all. I know that if I predicted one thing, I can see that you’d, say, do the opposite just to spite me, and I know that if I told you that you’re going to spite me by doing the opposite, you’re going to do it the expected way. I’m no fool — I can see every trick the limited mind of the human can mix up. And I, better than any computer ever to be designed by man, can whip up a solution to this ‘‘paradox’’ pretty darn fast. And perhaps what I might realize is that by telling you the future, you therefore have the power to change it…but I know the future that WILL happen as a result of telling you that. You see, I’m omnipotent.

Omnipotence was not mentioned. We are only concerned with omniscience. The who-will-outwit-whom is not an infinite process. As soon as the prediction is made, I have the control, and can do whatever I want to - provided I have free will. Since you deny free will, of course this is a moot issue. Omniscience is possible, but we are “railroad cars on a track”, we will perform as such, and to assign the concept of resposibility (also rewards and punishments) is nonsensical.

 

[Spock]

I think I agree with this.

Ok.

Everything is actual only to the Omniscient Being. This does not lead to a logical contradiction. If something exists in the POV of the Omniscient Being, but it does not exist in my POV, then clearly it exists, but my knowledge is too limited to see it.

Which is just another way of saying that the future is deterministic, with all its corollaries and ramifications.

Nice try
However, the Omniscient Being saw this coming, and tells you that you will not throw the dice, and he zaps you with a lightning bolt instead.

Wouldn’t that be cheating? To avoid the unpleasant dilemma, just kill the other guy?

 

[Spock]

In light of the assertion that the Omniscient Being could foresee an event like this and avoid it, we may have to amend our idea of what can be known.

Thank you! This is precisely what I was interested in.

So, if the OB does not accept your game (let’s say he just isn’t feeling sociable at the moment), then does the event “you (trying to) outsmart the OB” really exist? Perhaps he read your mind, but say that you were initially going to play by his rules, but suddenly saw an opportunity, so he didn’t read your mind beforehand. Might we then have to say that Omniscience also covers things that are potential through one or more untaken choices? Is that the same as the initial choice Spock offered?

Or, do we simply dismiss Spock’s thought experiment as constructing an event that could never happen? ie, God simply does not play games?

Right on the money. Omniscience cannot be proven, because the very attempt to prove it leads to the paradox I outlined above. It must be a subject of faith, and not of reason. Of course, I have no problem with this. The point was, that faith and reason are not compatible in this case. Faith says that omniscience exists. Reason says, let’s prove it, and the proof inevitably and necessarily fails. Therefore reason says: “omniscience does not and cannot exist”. Faith remains unshaken in the light of proof to the contrary.

 

[mmapplah]

Omnipotence was not mentioned. We are only concerned with omniscience.

“Omnipotent” was a goof up. I meant Omniscient. All these omni’s kill me

So, if the OB does not accept your game (let’s say he just isn’t feeling sociable at the moment), then does the event “you (trying to) outsmart the OB” really exist? Perhaps he read your mind, but say that you were initially going to play by his rules, but suddenly saw an opportunity, so he didn’t read your mind beforehand. Might we then have to say that Omniscience also covers things that are potential through one or more untaken choices? Is that the same as the initial choice Spock offered?

Here’s the thing. I can predict the descent of a ball from point a to b with amazing accuracy with human formulas. Now suppose I’m a god and I see someone running in the path of my experiment ball. Suppose I’m omniscient. I can see what he’s going to do with perfect accuracy. I can see every possibility that might transpire given any action I might do. I can make the choice, I am not bound my determinism, because I MADE deterministic time in the first place.

And because I made time itself, I can ponder everything that might have been but never will be.Yes, I can know about a book that never was nor ever will be written. And yes, if I so choose, I could tell a human to write down this book that never will be written had I not taken the omniscient initiative in the first place.

The point I’m driving at is this: humans are bound by determinism, but a Creator of this universe would not be. And if he wants to poke his finger into our existence and change the way deterministic time would will unravel, he can by all means can.

omniscience…to assign the concept of responsibility (also rewards and punishments) is nonsensical.

Not so, and this is a flawed rationale I have seen most often. Suppose I have here a mass murderer, a person who has without a rational hair of doubt killed people mercilessly. Should I let him go because he is technically not responsible, because he is merely a mix of nature and genetics? NO. Because we as a society have rules and ought to restrain such a bad concoction of genetics and opportunity. Just as we ought to have imprisoned/killed Hitler. Call it artificial survival of the fittest; that is, WE choose who prospers and who doesn’t (well, not REALLY chooses, but anyways…) Likewise, we should reward good behavior, to encourage the concept of reward.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

If it is so “subjective”, then you should explain, just how is it possible that we all “suffer” from the same illusion.

we dont all suffer from the same illusion actually. spend some time away from a clock, locked in a room with no outside views and it wont be long until your percetion of the illusion of time differs from other peoples perception. you wont be having the same illsuion at all. the same way with a flight at some significant fraction of C. the passage of time will vary by the observers position. time is the illsuion, change is the fact.

You also should explain why is our seemingly illusionary “memory” happen to “seem” to coincide with each other.

i never said anything about an illusory memory did i? and as above, the memories in the situations described will be incredibly different, they wouldnt coincide at all.

To say that there is no “past, present and future”, we live in an eternal “now” does no lead anywhere. That everything is just an illusion leads to solipsism - which is an untenable proposition.

i never said “everything” is an illusion. i said time is illusory. an eternal now leads to all sorts of realizations, especially in the context of omniscience. you apparently see it as some sort of pre-knowledge. but thats just a function of your human mind sorting change by a subjective measure we commonly call time. an omniscient mind would view every change simultaneously. not in order, but as a temporal singularity of everything happens at once. imagine that you could cause a universe in a box, not subject to the laws of that universe, and not subject to an outside universe like this one. but rather you were entirely outside of the universe and its attendant laws. how would the universe look? wouldnt you see all the change that the inhabitants of the universe see as temporal, simultaneously? as “time” doesnt apply to you in this situation, how else could you see it?

time itself is contingent on G-d. your ideas seem to depend on a G-d that is subject to the stream of “time” in the way we are. yet how could G-d be dependent or subject to that which is dependent on Him for its existence? even if we are to say that time is real, it doesnt follow that G-d is subject to it as you seem to assume.

there seems to be no evidence that time is a concrete fact. only change is. if one is not subject to time then only a simultaneous view of the universe would seem to be possible.

 

[Spock]

Here’s the thing. I can predict the descent of a ball from point a to b with amazing accuracy with human formulas. Now suppose I’m a god and I see someone running in the path of my experiment ball. Suppose I’m omniscient. I can see what he’s going to do with perfect accuracy. I can see every possibility that might transpire given any action I might do. I can make the choice, I am not bound my determinism, because I MADE deterministic time in the first place.

And because I made time itself, I can ponder everything that might have been but never will be.Yes, I can know about a book that never was nor ever will be written. And yes, if I so choose, I could tell a human to write down this book that never will be written had I not taken the omniscient initiative in the first place.

The point I’m driving at is this: humans are bound by determinism, but a Creator of this universe would not be. And if he wants to poke his finger into our existence and change the way deterministic time would will unravel, he can by all means can.

You are pretty much alone with the belief in the highlighted text. Most of us understand that the concept you persent is unacceptable. But since you believe it, there is nothing else for me to say.

Not so, and this is a flawed rationale I have seen most often. Suppose I have here a mass murderer, a person who has without a rational hair of doubt killed people mercilessly. Should I let him go because he is technically not responsible, because he is merely a mix of nature and genetics? NO. Because we as a society have rules and ought to restrain such a bad concoction of genetics and opportunity. Just as we ought to have imprisoned/killed Hitler. Call it artificial survival of the fittest; that is, WE choose who prospers and who doesn’t (well, not REALLY chooses, but anyways…) Likewise, we should reward good behavior, to encourage the concept of reward.

To be determined is a much stronger requirement, than being “influenced” by the genetics and upbringing. Yes, if there is no free will, if we are only railroad cars on a track, then we are not responsible for anything we do, and there should be no reward, no repercussions for our actions. However, we don’t believe that.

 

[liquidpele]

You are pretty much alone with the belief in the highlighted text. Most of us understand that the concept you persent is unacceptable. But since you believe it, there is nothing else for me to say.

Maybe the distinction was that “written” doesn’t mean “thought up”… obviously I can’t know about something I never thought of, but I could know about a story that just wasn’t written down yet.

 

[Spock]

we dont all suffer from the same illusion actually. spend some time away from a clock, locked in a room with no outside views and it wont be long until your percetion of the illusion of time differs from other peoples perception. you wont be having the same illsuion at all. the same way with a flight at some significant fraction of C. the passage of time will vary by the observers position. time is the illsuion, change is the fact.

It is not much of an argument to quote sensory depravation (which has serious psychological effects) or referring to relativistic speeds. The latter is especially incorrect, since relativity does not treat “time” as an independent variable, rather space-time where x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + (cit) is an invariant. Also that time-dilation occurs in large gravitational fields does not make time an “illusion”.

You did not explain that somehow we recall events in a similar manner, despite time is being just an “illusion”.

i never said anything about an illusory memory did i? and as above, the memories in the situations described will be incredibly different, they wouldnt coincide at all.

You should have, especially since the examples you quoted are irrelevant.

 

[Spock]

Maybe the distinction was that “written” doesn’t mean “thought up”… obviously I can’t know about something I never thought of, but I could know about a story that just wasn’t written down yet.

Yes, but the original question was whether a book “which was never written, since the author was never even born” could be known. Since there was no author to begin with, he could not have thought about the contents of the non-existing book.

And there another aspect of “non-existence”. Non-existence is “simple”, there is no difference between a non-existent book, or a non-existing ball, or a non-existent meal (for example). We might speak about different categories of non-existence objects, but that is a sloppy and meaningless proposition. Non-existence does not have (and cannot have) attributes.

 

[James_S_Saint]

To be determined is a much stronger requirement, than being “influenced” by the genetics and upbringing. Yes, if there is no free will, if we are only railroad cars on a track, then we are not responsible for anything we do, and there should be no reward, no repercussions for our actions.

That is blatantly false.

You are presuming the total absence of a conscious mind. The whole point and purpose of having consciousness is to acquire information to add to whatever other influences are guiding you so that you can balance all of the guiding influences toward a goal.

You are “response-able” to choose A over B and thus are the object of blame when you do not respond.

The purpose of blame is to add more influence toward the goal.

Determinism has nothing to do with responsibility or blame.