Omniscience
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Omniscience is a state of possessing exhaustively all knowledge. It is the complete understanding of anything and everything. Typically, it is attributed to deities (for the sake of esteeming deities). But, it can, alternately, be taken simply as the sum of all knowledge known to all knowers in all of time.
From the intuition that knowledge is consistent with itself, omniscience does not include 'knowing that' 2+2=5. So, unlike omnipotence, omniscience is not easily construed in such a way as to entail a contradiction.
Omniscience is often, though not always, a prerequisite for deities. The God of the Abrahamic religions is considered to be omniscient. Oddly, the Abrahamic God does not often display his omniscience. Examples would include; God asking Cain where his brother, Abel, is and the Hebrews needing to mark their doors with lamb's blood to keep their firstborn male children from being killed[1].
Apparently God's omniscience does not extend to the consequences of his own actions, because in Genesis 6:7 he said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
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[edit] Fun things to do with deities' omniscience
If When entities like Answers in Genesis are insisting that their version of God knows everything, a fun thing is to ask them the method to get God to reveal additional knowledge, such as:
- Methods of treating drug-resistant bacteria, and prevent them from developing additional resistances
- Methods of in vivo regeneration of lost arbitrary body parts, including but not limited to organs and limbs
- Methods of faster-than-light travel of matter and information
[edit] The Limitation of Finitudes
Knowledge is finite and measurable. If there could be no infinite length there could also not be infinite knowledge. There same goes to abstract concepts like love, hate, sadness and happiness. What would it mean to be all loving, if love is a description of a physical process? These are words to describe measurable processes. If this is true, an Omnipotent and Omniscient being cannot exist, for a contradiction would arise.
[edit] The Impossibility of Proving the Most in the Universal Set
Given any finite quantity, there could be something more of it. Given parameters there would be limits. For example, presuming special relativity, the fastest possible speed is light. Without knowing anything else, it cannot be proven that light is the fastest in the universal set, only in the set where the reality we know is as such.
[edit] The Implausibility of Knowledge of the Universal Set
Any entity that has knowledge can only prove his knowledge in an finite set, e.g. recalling information one at a time. For whatever the size of the set is, it could be a subset. This knowledge is a mark of ignorance. An omniscient being should be able to know this. Then how could the omniscient being know that the set of knowledge he has is all that there is and be all knowing at the same time? The argument can be put in steps as such:
1. Knowledge is quantifiable.
2. Quantifiable sets could always be a subset of another.
3. The set of the things one knows can be a subset of the universal set.
4. Knowing everything would include this knowledge: {The set of the things one knows can be a subset of the universal set}.
5. Assuming an omniscient being knows everything, he knows that "The set of the things I know can be a subset of the universal set".
6. "The set of the things one knows can be a subset of the universal set" is a mark of uncertainty and ignorance.
7. Therefore the omniscient being cannot exist.
It would be a very good application of this to demand proof from the claimant of omniscience. In which one of finite knowledge can never prove, and the same is for the claimant. The Omniscient God is as implausible as an infinite ruler. In modern times, this would apply to the All-Powerful and All-Knowing Deity proposed by most Theistic religions.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Common responses to these include God asking rhetorical questions and the need to verify those people as "practising" Hebrews (since when is validation necessary for all-knowing beings?).