Theli

Blu...

Yes, I agree. But we have learned a great deal, don't you think?

Oh, yes we can.
You cannot prove somethings nonexistence by use of hard evidence. But you can prove it's nonexistence by pointing out the complete lack of evidence.
By saying that X doesn't exist you only have to point out the lack of evidence for X. To claim that something exist that is outside our knowledge is a fallacy (a lie, even).

Anything, I guess. If every christian in the world were to pray to god simultainesly to make the moon squareformed (not a too large request, considering the amount of prayers), and the moon became squareformed that would definatly prove something.
Something that is not vauge, something that would point directly at the christian god, something that would make god a part of everyones worldview, someting new that does not take place in old scriptures, something we can learn more from by investigating.
Something everyone can see and agree on.

Unlikely conclution from observation based on false prior knowledge. The happy feeling might just aswell be ghosts.

We are still talking about an actual being here? A being that has spoken to masses of people, a being that has created the entire universe. Not just something in your head.

Well, observing your feelings are not based on prior knowledge for identification. You know what you feel, even if you had no word for it.

I thought the bible did.

Ok.

We don't? This was new to me.

The big difference is that todays theories is based on more probable prior knowlegde, while the "god creating earth" in genesis was writen back when people thought the earth was flat. How were they supposed to know how the earth was created?

Proof of what?

And here comes the bashing. We are also angry at mother-goose, we don't believe she exists. Do you think we reject all fairytales of demons and gods because we are angry?

What does mysteries have to do with god?

No, most of the time people want pretty little stories to calm their fears and silence their curiosity.

Is this a grammar error or something? I can decipher it your statement.

Are you trying to sell religion? Not excacly the right place to do so.

Is this why you believe?

Haven't scientific theories been proven? Then what is it I'm typing on right now? Didn't the computer start of as just a bunch of scientific theories?
People like science when it gives them Television, microwave ovens, CD-players, cars and medicin and computer, but when science tries to tell them something about their origin (and what the universe looks like) then suddenly science is the great devil.
Then suddenly science hasn't proven anything.
And what excacly have religion proven?
Throughout history, religion has had to take many scientific (onproven theories?) as facts and obandoned parts of their old teachings to do so. How big is creationism today?
What is left? A god that people have hidden away far beyond reality, scared to death that the big evil scientists will come and destroy him.

beausoleil

The same objection could be (and is, by philosophers of sciece) levelled at any universal principle. For example, how can I be justified in accepting a universally applicable law of conservation of energy since I haven't examined every possible instance of it, or anything approaching a significant fraction of possible instances? All I have is that we've tested it a lot and it's never failed.

The problem with God from this point of view is at a different level - I'm not aware of a single 'x' satisfying 'God knows x'. If there were a God, and he successfully demonstrated knowledge in a wide variety of situations, I would accept his omniscience at least as a working hypothesis.

Theli

beausoleil...

That's a good example, however it doesn't correlate to god's omnipotence as "omnipotence" is a value not a standalone theory.
The law of conservation is seen as a valid theory as no exception has been observed (within our tests).
But when it comes to omnipotence - we are not testing his "omnipotence" while asking god questions, we are testing his knowledge. Omnipotence is just an amount of knowledge (A very high one).
It would be like weighting (using 1kg weights) *something* to see if it weights 2tons or don't weight 2tons. And after adding 50kg we stop and suddenly reach the conclution that it does weight 2tons.
See the fallacy here? As if there was just "2tons" or "nothing" or in god's case "allpowerfull" or "no power at all".

Why omniscience? Isn't that overshooting it abit? "Alot of knowledge" is not "all knowledge".
I say it's not even valid as an assumption. It is way too high.

beausoleil

Seems to me the logic of the original post was that a second omniscient being would be needed to determine if God was omniscient. In effect, we'd need to be able to check all his knowledge to verify his omniscience. I think that if this principle is accepted in general then it can be levelled at any law proposed to apply universally.

It would be like weighting (using 1kg weights) *something* to see if it weights 2tons or don't weight 2tons. And after adding 50kg we stop and suddenly reach the conclution that it does weight 2tons.
See the fallacy here? As if there was just "2tons" or "nothing" or in god's case "allpowerfull" or "no power at all. Or energy is always conserved, or not conserved at all..

I'm not really convinced by your argument - I think you're making a distinction without a difference. I can frame God's omniscience as a hypothesis - "God will be able to answer correctly any question posed", which can be tested by asking him questions. If he gets an answer wrong, clearly he isn't omniscient.

Perhaps what you're getting at is how do we distinguish 'God is omniscient' from 'God knows an awful lot'. But that is a classic problem applying to all universal laws.

The problem for me lies in the 'verification' notion - if God presents himself his omniscience can be tested just as well as any other hypothesis about the 'world'. It can't be conclusively demonstrated, but what can?

Theli

beausoleil...

If we decide to verify his omniscience we must first have a notion that he is omniscient. The whole point with this argument is that we can't verify omniscience, only knowledge.

To everything we cannot measure/verify? The problem here is that omnipotence is not a attribute as much as it is a value.

This implies that you can ask any questions that possible exist and that you know what "everything" is. Still a very bold assumption on your part.

You are still measuring omniscience, not knowledge. This is faulty as the same principle can be used to prove that a ordinary human knows "eveything".
P1: I ask him a number of questions, some of them I know the right answer to.
P2: He answers correct the quesions I know the answer to (according to me).
P3: He answers the questions that I don't know the answer to (doesn't have to be the right answer).
C: He is omniscient.

This is what you get if you "test omniscience".

Again, now you are testing omniscience, and that is a fallacy as it's a value not an ability. Knowledge is an ability, you can test that.
That was my point with the weight-example. You don't measure 2tons, you measure weight.

As for law of conservation, this is not a value of ability. To compare to god's omniscience it would be like asking the same question over and over again at different times standing at different locations, and after god answered the question correct every time, we reach the conclution that he actually knows the answer to that question and that he will know the answer no matter where I stand when asking him.
We don't assume other charecteristics for the law of conservation that doesn't follow from the tests, just as we shouldn't assume that god knows the answer to questions different from those we asked.
It does not follow that he knows "everything" because...
1. We don't know what everyhing is.
2. He doesn't know what everything is.
3. Omniscience brings alot of trouble and complications/contradictions that I'm not going to get into here. All in all it's a very clumpsy assumption.

beausoleil

No, I'm still not seeing yuor point.

If we decide to verify his omniscience we must first have a notion that he is omniscient

Your argument doesn't seem to have been that the notion of 'omniscience' is incomprehensible.

The problem here is that omnipotence is not a attribute as much as it is a value.

You said that before, but I still don't know what you mean.

Quote:

can frame God's omniscience as a hypothesis - "God will be able to answer correctly any question posed", which can be tested by asking him questions.

This implies that you can ask any questions that possible exist and that you know what "everything" is. Still a very bold assumption on your part.

No it doesn't. It just means that I can start by asking him all the questions I already know the answer to and see if he gets them right. I can also ask him questions I will know the answer to in the future. If he fails, he clearly isn't omniscient. While he continues to pass, he might be omniscient.

This is the way scientists usually work. Of course, it never conclusively demonstrates omniscience, but it never conclusively demonstrates anything.


P1: I ask him a number of questions, some of them I know the right answer to.
P2: He answers correct the quesions I know the answer to (according to me).
P3: He answers the questions that I don't know the answer to (doesn't have to be the right answer).
C: He is omniscient.


Ps 1-3. I perform a wide variety of tests of the law of conservation of energy, in all of which it holds.
C: Energy is conserved.

Why is that different? Clearly there could be lots of possible tests I haven't thought of.

Actually your C wuold be better phrased as 'He is not not omniscient' since that's all you would get. But that's all you ever get.

To compare to god's omniscience it would be like asking the same question over and over again at different times standing at different locations, and after god answered the question correct every time, we reach the conclution that he actually knows the answer to that question and that he will know the answer no matter where I stand when asking him.


A philosopher of science would ask you what theory of omniscience you were using to assert that God's response was independent of questioner location - how we decide what criteria to vary a test and what not to vary is a very problematic area, actually

In the real world, however, when you test a principle you vary what you think are appropriate conditions - changing location is perhaps one appropriate way of varying tests of conservation of energy but not of God's omniscience. The appropriate thing to vary in the test of omniscience is obviously (to me) the question posed.

We don't assume other charecteristics for the law of conservation that doesn't follow from the tests.

Actually we do. Then we formulate experiments to test them. Omniscience could be subject to this procedure - new areas of questioning explored as they were thought of.

Yes, experimental approaches do not yield absolute truths. But I don't see why claims of omniscience shouldn't be subject to experiment should the claimant show up.

Since you say I'm not testing omniscience by asking God questions, let me put this to you. If I asked someone claiming omniscience a question and he got it wrong, would you say then that he might still be omniscient?

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: beausoleil ]</p>

Theli

beausoleil...

ok, let's take it from the top.

It doesn't? Well, one part of the argument is that the notion of 'omniscience' is incomprehensible, and there is no reason to apply an incomprehensible attribute to a being.
We don't know what "omni-" is. Therefore to claim that attribute is "omni-something" is a fallacy on our part.
That is not the main issue though.

Omnipotence means "allknowing" wich also means "knows everything". Now, this is the largest amount of knowledge a being could possibly have, don't you agree? I mean, what can be more than everything?
It is not a standalone attribute. Noone can be more or less omniscient. But... someone can have more or less knowledge, where everything/allknowing/omniscience is the highest.
With me so far?

But here's the trick. How do you know god is not omniscient-1? How do you know there isn't some question or some little particle that is outside his knowledge?
The probability for omniscience-1 is just as big as omniscience. So why choose omniscience as if it was some kind of standard?

I thought this was about weither omniscience is verifiable or not. I have a hard time believing that you can ask all questions about all knowledge you have, there isn't even words to describe all knowledge. You cannot verify it through such simple communication.
Second of all, this implies that you are right about everything you know, wich is just abit bigheaded, if you ask me.
Continuing...

This assumes that you will be able to aqcuire the absolute correct answer to all those questions.

Might?

If he is omniscient then he knows all his, and your future actions. How do you know he knows that? Perhaps he only knows the things you have read from books. Perhaps he is reading your mind and is simply extracting the answers from your memory.
Omniscience is a way to high goal to set. It has big complications, and assumptions on your side.

No scientist will say that the laws of conservation exists excacly everywhere. That's insane as we don't even know what "everywhere" is. They assume that these laws exist in other parts of the universe as those parts were created simultainesly as the small fraction of space we monitor. They also emit gamma- and light-radiation that would imply that there are the same elements, stars and galaxies there wich resembles our own.
While the difference between natural laws and knowledge is that natural laws exists exist everywhere where matter/energy similar to what has been tested exist, while god's knowledge only exists at in one place. And must be measured/tested/questioned there.
"Knowing everyhing" from "knowing alot" doesn't logically follow.
The only conclution that would be valid concerning gods amount of knowledge is "inconclusive".

Thank you for dodging my argument, making it a complete waste of time.
Natural laws exist whereever there is matter/energy. This can be shown by mathematics.
But knowledge does not exist as an attribute of matter/energy. Neither does it exist as a governing force of our known universe. It cannot be expressed in any formulas. There is a logical/mathematical link between natural laws in our solarsystem and natural laws in the andromeda galaxy. But there is no logical link between god knowing where my shoes are, and god knowing how many atoms a specific cocacola can is build up by.
It exists in the mind of the being in question.

Excacly, inconclusive.

The same as the location of natural laws. Read above.

Excacly, another problem. We don't know the criteria for changing questions. Does it matter if I have a hat on when asking questions? Does it matter wich language I speak?

That's excacly what my clumpsy rantings was all about.

The problem here is that you have no way of systematizing your questions so they would lead to omniscience. God might not know what a blue strawberry is, since there aren't any. There is no logical link to follow.
And how does god know if he is allknowing? He only knows the answers to the question asked. Not necessarily to the questions not asked. He only knows what is in his own realm of existence.

Huh?
So where did those charecteristics come from? If they don't come from the tests, does that mean we just made them up?

So you keep asking god question after question. The answers might be right, but even if they were you don't know where it will end.
Does god's knowledge end at omniscience? or does it stop at omniscience-1? There is no logical reason why he should be omniscient and not omniscient-1.

First of, testing omniscience is a waste of time as the conclusion is doomed to be other false, or inconlusive.
1. You don't know what everything is.
2. Testing omniscience can only give you 2 possible answers (true/false) wich is way to clumpsy when testing something so vast with an instrument so small and ineffective.
3. It would be like testing if a sandbox had 1 trilion grains of sand or "don't have 1 trilion grains of sand" by picking up grain after grain. And after giving up reaching the conclution that there actually is 1 trilion grains. Again using the clumsy (true/false) as a qualifyer.

No.
For several reasons...
1. The "everything-thing" again.
2. Omniscience would imply that he knows all actions/events that are going to happen, wich would mean that the chain of events/time observed in our universe would already been set, wich is impossible as our observing the universe would already had happen aswell.
We cannot observe a reality with already set events as our obervations of the reality would alredy have happened. We'll leave that part for now.
3. Omniscience would mean that he cannot change his mind as he already knew the change before it happened, and it couldn't be seen as a change.
4. Allknowing is pure overkill.
5. If something/someone would have the capacity of storing all knowledge about all events (including particels movement) happening now and all events that will happen, that person/being must have a replica of the universe in his/it's head from where it/he can extract info. Or he/it would have to be the universe. And if we would assume the universe with being everything, then was everything then he could not be said to exist.
6. And this is assuming that the universe is all there is, wich is an unfounded assumption.

I would probably ask him the following question - "Can you think of something that you don't know?"

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

beausoleil

I just got home from an evening in the pub with my research group, perhaps I will respond in detail later, when less potchkied. Perhaps not.

However, have you noticed that all your criticisms (e.g. But here's the trick. How do you know god is not omniscient-1? How do you know there isn't some question or some little particle that is outside his knowledge?)
exactly parallel those levelled in the so-called 'problem of induction'. This asks: How do you derive a principle applying to an infinite set from a finite set of tests?

Natural laws exist whereever there is matter/energy. This can be shown by mathematics.

Certainly it can't be shown by mathematics that the same natural laws apply as apply here.


But knowledge does not exist as an attribute of matter/energy.


What else is there?


There is a logical/mathematical link between natural laws in our solar system and natural laws in the andromeda galaxy.


No there isn't. At least, if there is one, you should waste no time putting yourself forward for the Nobel prize now. What there is, is evidence that the same natural laws apply based on observations.

Theli

beausoleil...

Since when did this become a scientific question?
If you want to discuss science there is another board for that.
This is your strawman that you are constantly trying to build up.
You haven't answered/commented the following.

1. What is "everything"? An how can you claim that something is/can know everything, if you don't know what everything is?
2. Can you give me some reason why a particle should not have the same natural laws as a identical particle at a different (untested) location?
3. What logical link can you give me to support that a being that knows (for instance) how many CD's I own should also know what you are going to have for dinner 310 days from now (without pleading omniscience in advance)?
4. Can you explain how even omniscience is possible, or even probable? I have given you a couple of problems regarding omniscience.
5. Does scientists claim that the laws of conservation applies excacly everywhere and affects everything?
6. You have yet to answer why omniscience should be favored over omniscience-1.
7. You have yet to show how even god can know that he is omniscient.
8. You have yet to show why "omniscience" should be a standard.
9. Don't we measure "knowledge" while asking questions.
10. The same line of thinking you apply to god can be applied to any human, and the result may well be omniscience.
11. You have yet to show why we should measure knowledge in a omniscience/non-science manner when that is an extremely clumsy and inaccurate way to measure knowledge.
I have more, but you seem to have problems reading long posts. So, I'll continue later.


Yes, where there is matter/energy. If you want to claim that there is no matter in the adromeda galaxy you can go ahead and do so, but then this discussion is over.

beausoleil

I think this discussion is over anyway, you seem to be getting a little angry. I have read your long posts, actually, I just don't agree with them. I've tried to follow a policy of answering the bits I thought related to the need to test every aspect of something's omniscience to establish it, and the logiocal impossibility of so doing.

I'm not arguing there is an omniscient being, just pointing out that the approach of this thread either also works against all proposed universal laws or doesn't work at all. You can never test every possible instance of either. So, in fairness, you can throw out both or neither.

So, of your points above, I see some as beside the point since they don't address this issue - this thread was about the need for a second omniscient being to test a first, not about other criticisms of omniscience. (Items 1, 3, 4, 7)

Some are to do with assumptions scientists make. Item 2 was covered at some length in my first degree course - people went to a lot of effort to verify that the same natural laws applied elsewhere in the universe as here. Item 5 - that is in general the working hypothesis. If you want to say that omniscience is unverifiable in the same sense that conservation of energy is unverifiable, that's fine by me. But that won't stop me saying that conservation of energy is well established, I'm afraid.

Items 6 and 8 are exact duplicates from the problem of induction - why should universal applicability be the standard? Why should all be favoured over all but one? Or all until 2010? Bertrand Russel's argument about turkeys (or was it geese?) for instance.

Item 9 - Actually we do measure knowledge by asking questions - exams, for instance.

Item 10 - and a human would fail to answer a question and hence be demonstrably not omniscient.

Item 11 - Not sure I understand. You started off saying this was not about science, but now your implying I want to measure omniscience in a non-science way, and that this is bad?

Matter/energy... rather than asserting it, perhaps you could provide the logical/mathematical link. Without using any observational results, of course. It is our working hypothesis, but it is far from obvious unless measurements are taken into consideration.

I'm not trying to wind you up, I'm just curious if you can establish a gap allowing the criticism to stand against omniscience but not against universal laws.