Omniscience
Posted on: June 13, 2007 - 10:02am
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Omniscience
I'm offering up my own personal definition of omnicience for debate.
Omniscience: Knowing all that is knowable.
Knowing "everything" is well understood as problematic. A concrete example is the Uncertainty Principle. There is something fundamentally unknowable about an elementary particle. We cannot simultaneously know both its position and momentum to an arbitrary level of precision. So an omnicient god must be either bound to reality (the Uncertainty Principle is valid) or must have a language more suitable than mathematics for describing elementary particles.
Let the games begin. I would be interested in any thoughts on how this restricted definition affects theological and metaphysical concepts. Or anything else for that matter.
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Wouldn't an unlimited ammount of knowledge require an unlimited ammount of storage space and therefore be impossible?
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The bible suggest prophets are real and that prophets are given detailed and true visions of the future by god (such as revelations). If god doesn't really know the future because it's unknowable, then prophecies would be impossible. If prophecies are possible, then god knows the future and then omniscience is back to the original meaning of knowing everything, and with that we are back to the point that free-will is an illusion.
"All it would take to kill God is one meteorite a half mile across - think about why." - Vorax
Visit my blog on Atheism: Cerebral Thinking for some more food for intelligent thought.
The definition offered does not require knowledge without limit.
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Sorry to be rude, but this strikes me as another attempt to define God into existence. I see no reason why we should throw out the accepted definitions of words, as they have been applied to God for hundreds of years, in order to admit belief in a being for which we still have no evidence. Show me God, and show me that he's omniscient, and I'll accept the need to revise our concepts. Until then, not interested.
It is certainly possible to arrive at a description of God that is acceptable by naturalistic standards. Maybe God is just a very powerful alien from a species much older than ours who came to the solar system and planted life here using advanced technology, then hung around to try to teach humans some things about how to get along (and bungled it badly). Perhaps he then left in disgust.
This God doesn't violate logic or science. His only knock is that he's still a God of the gaps in that we have no positive evidence pointing to him. But is he God? Is such a being deserving of our worship? If yes, then why don't we worship our parents, who also gave us life?
The problem for religion is, we are at a point in our civilization where we are no longer impressed with God in his early incarnation as a very ornery king. In order to construct a God that can command our worship, religion has had to make ever-more grandiose claims about the all-powerful, all-pervasive, all-knowing nature of him. But now there's a new problem: those claims are now so overblown that they violate logic and natural law.
So it seems that, as a civilization, we are at a level of sophistication where only impossible beings might command our worship. The logical conclusion is obvious: we shouldn't worship anything.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Humans already have a limited ability to predict the future. We succesfully predict the obvious (tomorrow the sun will rise) and the less obvious (tomorrow it will rain). This defintion does not eliminate prophecy. It only constrains it to communication of what is knowable about the future.
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I consider classical Judeo-Christian definitions of god as hopelessly flawed. So much so that discussing god in the context of those definitions is a useless endeavor.
You are saying that we don't need a god if it is not the classical god. But this eliminates the possibility of any type of symbiotic or other relationship with such an entity. The bacteria in our digestive tract *need* us to survive, even if they are not aware of it. But this risks spinning out of control, I would very much like to keep this thread focussed on omnicience.
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To me a definition like this just seems like an attempt to constantly redefine god in hopes of having him not dissapear by realizing that his definitions are impossible.
If you're constantly having to redefine and take powers away from god, I find it hard to believe that eventually he'd have pitifully so few powers that you'll have nothing left to do but stop believing.
This redefinition, though would make it harder to attack, is nothing more than an attempt to keep god around despite the illogical nature of him.
Prophecy and dedcution based on observation are not the same thing. Read revelations. It's talking in specifics and about much more the the sun rising or the weather (there are vivid descriptions of the future including what beasts will look like and specific actions by individuals) - this is not something that could be predicted by any means - it can only be explained as insanity, fiction or as divenely given knowledge of the future...you pick which one.
"All it would take to kill God is one meteorite a half mile across - think about why." - Vorax
Visit my blog on Atheism: Cerebral Thinking for some more food for intelligent thought.
I prefer to allow believers to define the things in which they believe, as long as they use reasonable definitions. It's a lot easier to make a specific case against something that is well defined.
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
This is another attempt to redirect the discussion. You are reading into my motivations something that isn't there.
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If the weather man tells me it is going to rain tomorrow, he deduced, not I. An entity with sufficient knowledege would be able to deduce things that I could not.
I have read Revelations. There is very little in it that is so specific that it isn't subject to wide intepretation. It's almost like me telling you its going to rain tomorrow and it rains in Hong Kong so I'm a prophet. Even among evangelicals there are major variations in the interpretation of Revelations. Look up pre, post and amillenialism.
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Revelations is specific, what it means can be interrpretted a million ways, but it itself is speaking about specific events and an order.
Howver, if you don't think profecies are god giving individuals visions of the future then fine. I will accept then that god may not actually be omniscient and therefor, god is fallible and free will is a possibility.
"All it would take to kill God is one meteorite a half mile across - think about why." - Vorax
Visit my blog on Atheism: Cerebral Thinking for some more food for intelligent thought.
Iterpretation is everything.
Revelations 6:2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: Zech. 1.8 ; 6.3 and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
This is very specific - a horse, bow, crown etc. But I know of no one that expects a white horse to appear in the sky and shoot off some arrows. Even the specific numbers in Revelations (666, 144,000, etc) are subject to wide interpretation.
You say prophecy must be divine revelation. The definition offered does not prevent this. If god is is working from a base of knowledge that exceeds humanity, then s(he) would be capable of deductions not accesible to humans. Were this god to interact with humanity and reveal these deductions, then it would still be prophetic from a human perpective.
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Bible litteralists do - and I have met (and know) some. But I digress..this was not my point. My point was that your view of god now contradicts the biblical view of god.
Consider one of the other contradictions your point raises: the bible says god is is infallible, perfect. If god is infallible, then god must know the future. If you say he predicts, but his predictions are never wrong, then you are actually saying he knows the future - because the only way one could never be wrong about a prediction is if that predictions events were set in stone. Are you saying now that god is fallible and some of his predictions may actually be wrong becuase he only knows whats knowable?
"All it would take to kill God is one meteorite a half mile across - think about why." - Vorax
Visit my blog on Atheism: Cerebral Thinking for some more food for intelligent thought.
"that is knowable" is redundant.
One cannot know the unknowable by definition.
So there is no difference between "knowing all" and "knowing everything".
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
I am not trying to defend the god of fundamentalist Christianity. If this contradicts their views, so be it.
Your point about the possibility of this entity being fallible is interesting. This definition certainly allows for that possiblity. Definately something worth thinking about.
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This is not true. I refer again to the Uncertainty Principle. It is fundamentally impossible to simultaneously know both the position and momentum of an elementary particle. It is something that can't be known. Unless quantum mechanics is wrong. For humans at least, we cannot know that Alpha Centauri exploded just now without waiting over 4 years for the event to become evident. We already understand that there are things that can't be known.
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I think there's a misunderstanding based on the way you approached this problem in your inital post. We shouldn't be looking to redefine "omnicient" here - we have a definition for omniscient and we can all agree that a God that is supposed to be omniscient (as Yahweh is) is logically impossible.
What we are looking for is a new word that expresses "knowing the most." I've seen this elsewhere where theists can escape their infinite regression problems by defining God relative to all other entities in the universe rather than relative to the universe itself. So God is the most knowing, most powerful being rather than all powerful or all knowing.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Let's assume for a moment that through some willful act, god caused this universe to exist. There is nothing that requires him/her to be "most" knowledgable to accomplish this, only sufficiently knowledgable. Honestly, I would prefer a different word than omniscient. Omniscient has a well established menaing so I really shouldn't appropriate it for something else.. How about hyper-sentient? I dunno.
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Megagnostic?
Makes me think of a giant nostril.
That's it? Nobody else?
I guess that would make Jesus the snot.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
What is being missed here is that I am not trying to redefine god. I am trying to articulate my thinking. My beliefs before I came to this website are the same as they are today. And I don't expect to change anybody's thoughts on the matter. I am selfishly using RSS to clarify my own thinking. So far, the objections I have gotten on this concept of omnicience is that it doesn't fit the "true" god (no True Scotsman) or that it makes the entity not godlike enough to be god (again, no True Scotsman). So then what is godly enough?
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I am not trying to redefine god. I am working towards better articulation of what my flavor of theism is. I doubt my groping towards what god is to me will change what anybody thinks. Were I presenting a case for a logically consistent form of theism, it would surely a very long essay, not a discussion of a single attribute that could potentially be asigned to such an entity.
This question is irrelevant, but I am willing to answer it. Except it makes no sense. Of course believing is different than not believing. Can you be more specific?
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No, the objections you are getting is that we HAVE a definition for omniscience and we can't see the point for changing it to fit the concept of a logical God. I'll try to illustrate the difference from the Scotsman fallacy.
Scotsman:
christian: "Christians are good people."
atheist: "Most Nazis were Christians."
christian: "Then they weren't real Christians."
Our discussion:
wavefreak: "Christians are good people."
atheist: "Most Nazis were Christian."
wavefreak: "Nazis can be considered good people if you change the definition of "good" to include 'killing lots of Jews' "
atheist: "I object to that on the grounds that this admits the Nazis to the category "good" where they obviously don't belong with other members of that category."
I feel that tinkering with the definition of omniscience to make it a coherent concept has the unfortunate effect of admitting God to the category of "things which could exist."
Of course, all this springs from the fact that that God lacks any positive identification at all. He's known only for what he is not and not what he is. This is why everyone is able to make up and defend a different model of God. It's like debating Han Solo's ethics - since he's a fictional character, ultimately they are what you want them to be.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Why redefine any terms, why not just make up your own terms? At least then we don't have to ask exactly what you mean when you say "omniwhatever", and instead can just use term you have clearly made and defined.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
I conceeded earlier that redefining omniscience was not a good tact. And even after that, the conversation keeps getting pushed towards a conceptualization of god that is not mine. I'm really not interested in discussing or defending absolutes that give rise to such obvious contradictions. What I am really working towards is that there is a distinction between "knowing what can be known" and the impossible "knowing everything". I gave what I thought was a concrete example of an emperical phenomena that demonstrates this possiblity (The Uncertainty Principle). And so far, the discussion has mostly focussed on gods that are exactly what I have no desire to discuss.
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I already pointed out that using omniscient was stealing a known concept and re-applying it. I'm open to suggestions for better terminology.
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Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Hrrrmmm ... I'm no good at coining words? So far the candidates are hypersentient and meganostic. Anything better?
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Also, is there any proof that "knowing everything" is impossible? If homo sapiens survives another billion years (we will probably have evolved into another species by then) what will we know?
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
So then the science invoked to deny the existence of god is not sufficient to show that knowing everything is impossible? To invoke some unknown knowledge is the same as invoking a deity. As a predictive theory, quantum mechanics is the most succesful in history. I don't think it can so casually be marginalized. There is a nifty thing called Kolmorogov complexity that places limits on what can be proven regarding the complexity of strings and the algorithms that produce them. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem showed conclusively that systems of symbolic logic of sufficint complexity to incorporate numeric operations are either incomplete or inconsistent. Such a system of logic can NEVER be consistent AND complete. Then there is Turing's Halting Problem. These all place fundamental limits on what can be known about the systems in their domains.
These seem like proof to me. Where am I wrong?
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What was the question again? What's the most that can be known, theoretically?
I suppose that a megagnostic being could hold all the information in a light sphere with a radius equal to the time that it has existed. It's maximum rate of acquiring new information would be equal to the amount of information that entered the volume of the light sphere in a given time, as defined by the outward expanding horizon of the sphere.
Postulating a being that was created along with the Big Bang, that would be all the information in the universe.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
A few years ago it was thought the speed of light was the ultimate speed.
But you believe there's a god. What evidence do you have?
Aren't you just filling the 'hole of the unknowable' with a thing called god?
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
First, you are changing the subject. Nowhere in this thread did I claim to prove or try to prove the existence of a deity. I only opened for debate a concept similar to omniscience. Within the context of this thread I have no burden of proof regarding god for I made no such claims.
Secondly, the things I offered regarding limits on knowledge are PROOFS. The domain of discourse allowed by symbolic logic is FUNDAMENTALLY limited regarding completeness and consistency. Not even god can contradict this if logic is the arbiter of truth. Change the rules and you change the domain. Create another domain of discourse and you can only prove things within that domain. These things do not SEEM impossible, they are impossible. If you allow the possibility of this contradiction then I can say inchoherence doesn't matter because something else will work in describing gods with infinite attributes.
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Since 'omnicience' has an established definition (in fact 'the omnicience one' is a reference for a god), a new word is needed for "knowing all that is knowable".
The word 'omnicience' itself now looks incoherent.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
I conceed that a discussion of omnicient ultimately leads to one about god, I am just not prepared for that.
Omniscient is incoherent? Interesting.
So far, this thread has given me three things.
1) I need a new term. I'm leaning towards hyper-sentient
2) An entity that is hyper-sentient may be fallible
3) Omniscient may be a broken concept (incoherent)
I will offer a hint at where I am going. Having declared belief in god as delusional, atheists have done me a favor. I don't have to definitively prove the existence of god, I only have to prove that it is not necessarily delusional to believe that god exists. Part of this requires definitions that can be discussed without falling into the mire of incoherence. Having said this, I must repeat that I am not trying to re-define god in any larger sense, I am trying to define what my personal theism encompasses. I suppose the possibility exists that at the completion of this excercise I may end up as an atheist. I also expect this process to take more than a few posts on an atheist forum.
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And you'll notice that everyone posting here sniffed out this direction from the start and pretty much refused to play ball. We have seen the old theist bait-and-switch too many times to be taken in. We know where the "redefinition" of God's characteristics leads: to yet another equally arbitrary version of God for which there remains no evidence and no theoretical necessity.
Since the only place God exists is in the heads of believers, "your personal theism" constitutes the sum total of God's existence. God is only ever what we imagine him to be, and imagining him to be logically consistent goes no distance toward making him any more real.
Let me save you some time and tell you where this journey will take you: you'll either arrive at a definition of God that is so metaphysical, so vaguely ethereal that he can have no possible relevance in the natural universe, or you'll arrive at a definition in which God is a powerful alien that we have no real reason to worship. Either way, you will end up with a tough choice between bravely facing the unpleasent facts your reason has served up, or throwing up your denial shield and deciding that wrapping yourself in an irrational security blanket is better than knowing the truth.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
You make some pretty big assumptions. I've been considering these things for years and expect to for years to come. All this site gives me is an opportunity to clarify my own thinking. I really don't care if you want to "play ball". What strong athiesm and non-cognitivism have done is set before me a problem that I fully expect to solve, one way or the other. Everybody "sniffed out" what their own biases told them their noses were smelling. I've been categorized incorrectly from my first post on this site. Even your comment about an alien unworthy of worship demonstrates your bias as to what theism is in general and is completely off base in relation to me. One thing this thread has shown me is that there is a lack of ability among some of the participants in this forum to debate an idea or concept. They would rather remain fixated on promoting a singular viewpoint of which they are so utterly conviced of its correctness that they feel no compulsion to allow the exploration of anything else. I, for one, have never shied away from asking questions, regardless of what others think is appropriate. I'm certainly not going to let a forum such as this change me in that way.
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I don't think you're being fair to us. You spent most of this thread protesting that you weren't trying to construct a rational model of God, then you hit us with this:
So it's clear that you did have a hidden agenda for your question about omniscience and that is was aimed at creating philosphical wiggle room in which you could claim to hold a rational, non-delusional belief in God. Saying that this is about "your personal theism" excuses nothing...all theism is personal because God only exists in people's heads.
I hope this clarifies for you why I and others have been reluctant to take the discussion at face value.
As for our supposed closed-mindedness, I was willing to take your claim that you weren't trying to rationalize God at face value and I posted my answer to the original question farther up this page.
Just so you have some background, it is a source of some controversy in atheist circles as to whether we should even be getting into these discussions with theists. Debating characteristics of God, like omniscience, only puts us on theist turf where we can go around and around forever in non-conclusive debate about unknowable entities. This conversation can end up creating the illusion that there is actually something to talk about, which is bad optics for the atheist cause.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Good lord man. If I was expecting to construct a coherent theistic argument in a few posts on this forum then I am delusional. If you can't take it at face value that I wanted to discuss a single concept without trying to read into it my intent then there is nothing I can do about it. If every time I ask a specific question I get sucked into a general argument then this place is going to be of less utility to me than I had hoped.
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*sigh* Whatever.
Here's where we're at: omniscience is an incoherent concept because it evokes infinity. Megagnostic is no good because it sounds like a nostril. Hyper-sentient might be internally consistent, but we really don't have a definition - are we talking about possessing all the information in the universe? Or all the information that can be possessed in a given time-space volume? Are we talking about just storing the information, or being able to process it, too?
I guess once we have these concepts clear we can start looking around for something to apply them to.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
I'm trying really hard not to be prickly, but you gotta cut me some slack. The arguments used on this site are well rehearsed and the are years of thought and discourse behind them. I really don't mind having my thinking challenged but I have to take it in digestible chunks.
Processing information is a requirement for me. Storage alone makes for an awfully boring entity. I am not too concerned about the amount of information as opposed to knowledge relative to ours. At some point the amount of knowledge for such an entity would be far enough beyond us that we would not be able to discern any difference if that knowledge increased. This last bit also allows for the knowledge of this entity to increase. I consider this plausible as in my conceptualization anything that exists is dynamic on some level.
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