Omnipotence, Everything

[Sovereign]

I meat in terms of what our brain can do the average human only taps about 3% of that potential, not 3% of the actual brain.

[ogden]

Rottingteeth- If I knew everything, I would have to be everything, because I'd have to know what it was like to be any given thing. That would make me everything, and if everything was actually one thing, the only thing it could be is nothing.

No- everything still could be the totality that is not nothing. Being and nothingness is the inescapable bianary condition. If you could reduce to a singularity then I would have to agree that everything must surely be nothing and nothing would be all there is.

If you must become what you know, then how is it that you know what nothing is, but are not become nothng?

[de Silentio]

I meat in terms of what our brain can do the average human only taps about 3% of that potential, not 3% of the actual brain.

What more can our brain do? How does one prove that we only use 3% of our brain?

[Doobah47]

I've come to believe that...there is absolutely no one, no thing, that can know everything. I think this because, in order for one to know everything, it would have to be everything. if it were to be everything at once, nothing would exist.

I interpret 'all-knowing' as not so much a long list of every single thing there is to possibly conceive or perceive, but as a super intelligent intuition, a subconscious intelligence. So if you asked God a question and God wasn't listening, God would still know the right answer. Or if you wanted an idea for some biology research God would be able to guess what you were to discover if you took his advice, even though the research had never been done and there was no way of telling what might happen.

However I also have a theory that God is a template for mass populations, and their potential; maybe we are coming close to being all knowing (ie DNA, atoms, cloning) or maybe we are very far away, but I have a hunch that some people have already discovered everything there is to know and are drip-feeding us information using hypnosis, and that religion has manifested a determinism specifically for humans, something that we cant break out of... paranoia...

But, that would mean that we are God, which kind of makes sense really - we are becoming all-knowing, give the scientists a couple of hundred years and there probably wont be anything left to experiment with; we could well be omnipotent, if you take curing ills and causing death to be a symptom of power; and we are well on the way to becoming omniscient, I read the other day that there's now a satellite that can look through the clouds, there are probably cameras that could fit into people's eyes or on flies etc. So I think my theory isn't so outlandish, the big question is who set all this religion up?

[the thinker]

I would have to say that there is no all-powerful, all-knowing being. I just don't see how that's possible. If there is some sort of being that knows far more than we, as humans, can, I would not call them all-powerful and all that, but another species, another race. An alien, maybe. Don't laugh.

Also, if the higher power knew all, then they'd have to know past, present, and future. That would mean that there is no free will, wouldn't it? Unless there are alternate universes for each time when things could have gone differently. But those would be virtually infinite. Which brings us to the point of infinite numbers. How could anything know them all?

[saiboimushi]

Originally Posted by rottingteeth

I've come to believe that...there is absolutely no one, no thing, that can know everything. I think this because, in order for one to know everything, it would have to be everything.

You may be absolutely right. And you could go even further, if you wanted, and say that to know anything, one must first know everything.

if it were to be everything at once, nothing would exist. [...] it would wipe everything out...instantly. and then, nothing will have ever existed, because nothing would exist, and time is something, the past is something. and since we exist right now...since we can observe time, doesn't that prove that there is no thing, no being, nothing, that is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.

Perhaps you could explain this in more detail, because you may be on to something here.

It's tempting to get this far into the science of knowledge and turn back. The idea of an omniscient being is so far removed from our experience that, even if it were true, it would seem to have no effect on us finite mortals. If knowledge exists, then (as one argument goes) surely it must be a human thing; and if it isn't, then philosophy cannot and should not touch it. But what if it isn't human? Should we then just stop thinking about it?

You're getting into deep issues when you talk about something "being everything at once." The last stage in epistemology, or really in every Ology, may be the science of Infinity. This is something that I've only just begun to look into, in order to visualize (if possible) what it means to be omniscient (i.e., ALL-knowing).

A new/old ontology or mathematics must be developed--one which, although it may sound unphilosophical, will philosophically refuse to rest on any assumptions about things like quantity, quality, continuity, division, or totality. Quantum physics and the like might eventually stumble onto it, following blindly the method of trial and error. But we cannot afford to wait for others to do the work of eternity; we must engage the problem of ontology ourselves.

My old sunday school teacher once told me, "All of God is everywhere." Finding out what he meant might be the same thing as discovering the true nature of knowledge.

[saiboimushi]

Originally Posted by rottingteeth

if I knew everything, wouldn't I know what it was like to be Abraham Lincoln? if I didn't know that, I wouldn't know everything. so if I knew that, that would mean I was Abraham Lincoln. but then to know everything, I would also have to be everyone else, at once. if it was not all at once, I wouldn't know everything, because I would not know the future. to know the future I would have to be in it (somehow).

Of course! Of course. You're really thinking here. But what's the next step? How can we go further? For surely you cannot be satisfied even with this--you, a true dreamer.

[Doobah47]

There's an interesting little paradox that if ther were an 'all-knowing' x, then would x have to know 'nothing' in order to know everything.

This sounds good, but I think the answer is no...

[de Silentio]

I wouldn't know everything, because I would not know the future. to know the future I would have to be in it (somehow).

If you know everything about the past, you can predict the future with 100% acuracy.

[de Silentio]

I've come to believe that...there is absolutely no one, no thing, that can know everything. I think this because, in order for one to know everything, it would have to be everything.

If an all-knwoing being was seperated from space-time as we know it, it would not have to be everything to know everything.