pennywise121

i am sorry, but i feel that the thread on free will has been jacked (in no small part due to my actions) and replaced by a debate on omniscience and its impact on our freedom to choose. as such, i am moving my comments on the matter solely to this thread in an attempt to give jumpinjesus his thread back.

however, in the spirit of expanding the scope of discussion, i have some ideas to put forth (most of them not my own )

firstoff, some basics.

full text at Wikipedia

obviously, this is not a full and conclusive list of omniscience or the responses to it. i chose wikipedia because it is community moderated, so it reflects what people actually think about something, rather than only what webster decides to say.


for a damned interesting (albeit fairly involved) treatise on omniscience and it's effects on us, please see Omniscience
this article is too long and complex to quote or explain without actually reading it, but to summarize some points:

if omniscience exists, it necessitates that the omniscience is in fact the subject rather than the object. in other words, the being is not omniscient, rather the omniscience exists.

omniscience, being ever constant (never changing) is everlasting. basically, omniscience knows everything, and never forgets anything, so it will always be here, unless it is not truly omniscient.


anyway, he goes on to explain how omniscience necessitates the greatest love possible, and explains why we are what we are.

interesting read, and i hope i still get some responses to this thread

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Food for thought.

asaris

I'm going to just respond briefly, because I'm running a bit late for school. Read this thread -- the wiki you posted was a bit misleading about middle knowledge; in any case, given the way I approach the problem, not having free will in the fullest sense doesn't matter. I've found that people who think that we need free will "in the fullest sense" often have trouble distinguishing free will from randomness.

Regarding knowledge, when I say JTB is the generally accepted definition of knowledge, I mean that I've never meant or heard of an analytic philosopher who disagreed with that definition. The problem you raise of a lack of second-order knowledge doesn't matter here, since it's clear we sometimes have knowledge, and we've just been stipulating as to knowledge cases. The problem of the subjective nature of justification, connected to the problem of our lack of second order knowledge isn't problematic here, since we're talking about objective justification. Finally, and I apologize for not being clear about this, but what I meant by definition was merely that JTB is a necessary condition of something's being knowledge, not a sufficient condition.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

RCAlyra2004

HI, Great thread...

Omniscience is somewhat paradoxical, in my opinion. If A being (we can say God for arguments sake) knows everything, it has "omniscience", and that implies foreknowledge and a perfect understanding of all that I have done and will do. I cannot therefore make any decisions that were not seen by "god" before they happen.

In order for a being to be omniscient I beleive that one of two scenarios would have to take place, I am open to More if you can think them up.

Scenario 1 - God is omniscient and therefore MUST also be omnipresent. I do not beleive you can have one without the other and here is why:

To have the attribute of Omniscience God would have seen the entire "tape" of my life. God would therefore have to control me or else face infinitley differing world every time I actually make a choice that differs.. either God would also have to be omnipresent in order to be able to manage the change from any one action that God or I may undertake or God would have to be Omnipresent in order to control me. If I am aware of God's Omniscience it becomes EVEN MORE imperative that God be Omnipotent. The reason for this is that I may now choose another course in life just to complicate things further. SO... for god to be truly omniscient she would have to have Complete control of me and all circumstances around me. I hope my writing lives up to the logic I am trying to portray here.

Scenario 2 - If God is omniscient only you CAN have a degree of control !

Imagine playing "chicken" with God... You are driving your Ford towards God's on the highway of life. The first one to veer away Loses! Since I know that God knows what I am about to do... I do nothing. I drive straight ahead and wait for God to lose by veering out of the way since she knew what I was going to do. Imagine that I just won a game of logic over an omniscient being!

Again, if God is truly Omniscient, then omnipresence would have to be another attribute.

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Living on the edge of sanity

Unright

I agree. Omniscience, by definition, does not exclude future knowledge or potential knowledge of the future. An Omniscient being knows everything that was, is, and possibly could be.

Your logic is okay, but you're making several suppositions that fail to hold water. Even if there was an omniscient being, it does not follow that that being wishes to have an active hand in what they observe. You're pre-supposing that an omniscient being is constantly and actively trying to instill order to lessen the amount of chaos the being would have to observe. But an omniscient being would be able to observe chaos or order with equal ease.

ChistledStone

Sorry for my newbishness, but I reckon that an omnisent (or whatever the adjective is) person would know the future possibilities.

Meaning he/she/it would have knowledge of the possible futures and what chances are of that happening, therefore making them omninescent but at the same time allowing free will.

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A.minor.fall.then.a.major.lift

RCAlyra2004

Unright, I beleive you are correct.

I have a hard time with the entire concept of omniscience, since I beleive it only to be a concept. That is to say that it is impossible for a being to be omniscient because she/he/it would have to be larger than AND outside AND inside of our universe all at the same time. In other words there would be too much information for this being to digest all at once. If there was such a being it certainly would not be a "personal" god because of it's immensity. It is for that reason that I have failed in my conceptualization of omniscience.

Hence, the logic of such a circumstance evades me to a degree. But if I try long and hard I am certain I can squeeze out some logic that would make everyone groan. (HA HA)

Thanks for you great feedback!

RCA

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Living on the edge of sanity

Johnny Rotten

I veer towards the "strictly necessary" model of existence. If something is not strictly necessary for the system to sustain itself, then it can removed from the equation. I do not think our system requires an omniscient being to maintain it. I think it is, to a certain and significant degree, self-sustaining. For example, although humans are historically brutal and avaricious, there still an underlying, subconscious understanding that some things can simply not be done if we are to preserve what we have. Mutually assured destruction is what allowed us to avert nuclear devastation for the past fifty years or so. However, this doesn't necessarily prevent us from developing a technology with more destructive potential than we're aware of.

So the population of our system is primarily interested in maintaining itself, thus making an arch-being unneccesary. Now, you may look at our widespread pollution and warfare and disagree with me, but these elements have more to do with ignorance and outright apathy towards long-term effects. If our self-sustaining extinct fails, it is because our species has failed. Furthermore -- and Judeo-Christians will probably find this notion distasteful -- our continued presence on this Earth or any other planet is not necessary. There is no indication that an arch-being would require our presence, our safety, or our worship in its overall plan. Earth is but a speck on a grain of sand on a beach so large that its parameters can not be entirely determined. On the other side of the coin, there is no indication that our destruction is necessary.

Although I am spiritual, I am confident that it is up to us, and not "God's grace," to survive and make something meaningful of ourselves. If we have any mission at all, I think it is to become graceful ourselves. And that grace may come in the form of complete sacrifice, which I believe is the highest form of honor.

So that's a long way of saying that defining omniscience is, in my opinion, a misleading endeavor.

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"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

asaris

Nah. Christians have traditionally believed that God freely chose to create us -- nothing compelled him to do so. So far from finding this distasteful, most of us would agree.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

xepherys

Even if omniscience exists, it can only exist within the framework of the being in question. In eternal infinity, there is likely a framework outside of that being, and outside of its omniscience. Therefore, omniscience is in the mind of the beholder.

pig

I believe reality itself can be conceived as being an omniscient quantity, of which we are a part by default. Anything short of this I conceive to be primarily academic.

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You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

xepherys

Hence 'Tilted Academics'. Philosophy is academic as a whole. That's part of its charm.

pig

I meant as opposed to practical. Do you believe philosophy has a practical application, or is only useful for mind games?

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You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

zen_tom

Just a pipe in to say that just because something exists as a concept doesn't mean it has any basis for reality in the real world. I'd place conscious omniscience under this category, right next to superman, the chemical transmutation of lead into gold, pixies, goblins, fairies and free money.

In a strange way, unconscious omniscience could be argued for. As the universe goes through its life, churning space, matter and time up within itself as it goes, everything inside it, every action, reaction, force and existance is being 'memorised' by the universe in the same way a computer chip can memorise all the 1s and 0s fired into each of its memory addresses. From the outside of time and space, perhaps this universe could be unreeled, its events examined, studied and considered by extra-universal minds the same way our scientists smash apart the tinyest of atoms to try and work out what makes them tick.