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Old 11-17-2023, 05:32 PM
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Default Super powers? You can't have either one

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Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
It's just trying to get people to realize what omniscience really means.
The notion of "omniscience" is just a made up idea. The notion of "being"omniscient is a super power, that doesn't actually exist. The notion means "having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things", which is pure fiction. It's just as much fiction as the idea of a God. Or a God with this super power.

To just have a record of "all things", which would mean from the start of it all, would require as much structure and energy as there is in the existing Universe. To just store such an impossible amount of information. (if all things is infinite, that is so much worse)

It would actually be a magnitude more than the energy that exists, because the relationship between every last thing, be it Galaxies or quarks, is part of "knowing" all things, and the amount of information involved in that is large, even if you used quarks to store it, it's more than all the quarks that exist. And that's just the information storage. Perception and understanding of everything would require even more energy.

This leaves aside the fact that it's all changing at every moment, and that information also has to be stored somehow. It's an impossibility. So being "omniscient" is a made up super power. That can't exist.

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You can have an omniscient God, or you can have free will, but you can't have both.
Quite apart from the reality that there is no God, much less one with an impossible superpower, free will is also a notion of a superpower that does not exist. By it's own definition.

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free will, in philosophy and science, the supposed power or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe.
Free will | Definition, Determinism, & Facts | Britannica

"the supposed power" indeed.

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Old 11-17-2023, 09:55 PM
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Default Re: Super powers? You can't have either one

I must say it’s nice to see some action in the Philosophy section.
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Old 11-17-2023, 10:18 PM
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Default Re: Super powers? You can't have either one

Some Theists argue that their God exists outside the universe that we perceive, so the lack of enough space/energy/stuff inside the universe to store all the information/knowledge may not be enough to rule out omniscience.

I still think that any entity that has omniscient knowledge about any universe (by whatever magical means) still rules out the possibility of free will inside that universe.

For the record, I don't believe in omniscience, and I don't believe in free will either.
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Old 11-18-2023, 01:46 PM
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Default Re: Super powers? You can't have either one

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For the record, I don't believe in omniscience, and I don't believe in free will either.
This makes you intelligent and reasonable, in my eyes. At least when it comes to mythical super powers
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Old 11-19-2023, 04:07 AM
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Default Re: Super powers? You can't have either one

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
For the record, I don't believe in omniscience, and I don't believe in free will either.
This makes you intelligent and reasonable, in my eyes. At least when it comes to mythical super powers
We all have free will.
I wouldn't mind a little omniscience, though.
Then, at least I would know how badly I was about to fuck things up the next time I exercise my Free Will. It might cut down in the 'oops' factor a tad.
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Old 03-07-2024, 10:19 PM
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Default Re: Super powers? You can't have either one

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I wouldn't mind a little omniscience, though.
Then, at least I would know how badly I was about to fuck things up the next time I exercise my Free Will. It might cut down in the 'oops' factor a tad.
Yeah. In my experience, running something by other people you trust and respect works as well.

I'm reminded of the old bible stuff

"They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”, which is not the one I was looking for. It's something about not traveling alone.

For all I know it's from Dune
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Last edited by -FX-; 03-07-2024 at 10:42 PM.
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