Omniscience Paradox?

[Sera_EX]

Something has been on my mind lately... "Omniscience" is the power to "know all", with Omni-Science meaning "all knowledge". However, what about the "Unknowable"? If an omniscient being knows everything, does it know the unknowable? If yes, it's a paradox, if no, is it still a paradox?

1. If the omniscient being knows the unknowable then the unknowable was not unknowable in the first place.

2. If the omniscient being does not know the unknowable, then it doesn't know everything?

Am I overlooking something?

 

[FanofRPGs]

Same as the omnipotence paradox, he knows it. Omniscience is completely infallable and is separate from other cases.

 

[VenomElite]

Well, everything is subjective. The very nature of something unknowable such as the Nameless Dao of Daoism/Taoism is a paradox in itself.

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name."

Basically, that which can be known cannot be unknowable, so an omniscient being (who is supposed to know all knowledge and all things) cannot know the unknowable, because the unknowable is not knowable whatsoever.

At the very least, the omniscient being can only know that the unknowable cannot be known.

 

[Saikou_The_Lewd_King]

Both "Unknowable" and "Omniscient" are hyperbolic, since they are both meant to be ultimates. I guess it's depends which is more ultimate

 

[VenomElite]

Also:

"These opening lines distinguish between two Taos. One is the "eternal Tao" (which cannot be named or explained) and the other "Tao" seems to exist in space and time (and can be named and explained). The eternal Tao is beyond existence and cannot be named or fully understood, while the other Tao exists and can be known. The eternal Tao is infinite; the other is finite. The eternal Tao is formless; the other is formed. The eternal Tao is transcendent; the other is immanent. The other "Tao" is an attempt to describe the "eternal Tao" in human terms; but such effort can never express the eternal Tao fully."

Yet another Taoist take on the Absolute and that something that is boundlessly infinite, indescribable, ineffable, and unknowable, does not have an unequivocal definition, and thus cannot be "known".

 

[Sera_EX]

That brings up another paradox:

How can you know that something is unknowable if it is completely unknowable in the first place?

 

[The_Everlasting]

This is literally the Unstoppable Force vs. Immovable Object paradox but with knowledge.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Exactly.

Also, being Omnicient is typically easier to define than something unknowable. And usually when fiction describes something as unknowable, they are not including Omniscients.

 

[VenomElite]

"All knowledge" does not include something is "Unknowable". Let's say you go to a library, you can read everything in that library and gain all the knowledge of that library. But even if you did, you wouldn't know anything "outside" that library (so to speak). Such as a book that doesn't exist, at best you would only know that said book does not exist, you can't just make up "oh the book that doesn't exist in such and such", you can only know that it doesn't exist.

 

[EnderShadowr215]

That is rather flawed reasoning if I do said so myself. All mortal beings can not simply process infinite amount of information and knowledge as it is beyond our grasp to understand the unknown. We can not understand what is not known to us. For example the whole universe itself as it is far beyond our basic understanding and how it Works. We simply formed theories and assumptions including speculations on how it works. A omniscience being is more in akin to knowing all logic and reasoning that is far beyond a mere mortal's being basic understanding. If we try to take the huge amount of information, our mind will shattered and it will take decades if not years to recovery from gaining immense amount of knowledge you can take in as it is simply too much to take in than you can take out. You see what I talking about here.

 

[Sera_EX]

This isn't about mortals. It is about omniscient beings. In any case, I would like more input on this.

 

[EnderShadowr215]

To be fair this is simply a example as a omniscient beings can known the unknown as they know how it form and how it works. It doesn't truly matter if they don't exist or they actually exist as they know it will be something that can simply be learned about it than it is to not be learned. It is more akin to "knowing the unknown" as they can figure it out quite easily.

 

[Tsubaki_Blue]

The "Unknowable" and the "Omniscient" are one and the same. Unless we are talking about fiction where there can be an omniscient being and yet another omniscient being. Every Tao school I've been to has taught me the same way. The concept of the "Unknowable God" is that it is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, unknowable, ineffable, boundless, indescribable, and beyond all forms duality, and understanding.

Only such a being could comprehend it's own existence, because it is already boundlessly beyond our realm of understanding.

 

[VenomElite]

Also, this is nothing like the omnipotence paradox. The omnipotence paradox is can an omnipotent being create another omnipotent being? Can it create a stone it cannot lift? Can it deny it's own existence?

Omniscience is different. It is "know all" which is nothing like "do all".

 

[Hop_Hoppington-Hoppenhiemer]

Hop likes to think how can it be omniscient if it doesn't know something. Also something can't be unknowable unless an omniscient knows it only

 

[VenomElite]

Because it is "unknowable". Something that is truly unknowable and indescribable would be reserved only for the Absolute. It knows all, it is all, and it is unknowable to all.

There are examples of this in Hinduism, Taoism, and Kabbalah.

 

[DontTalk]

Getting away from religious concepts, of course omniscience is a logical paradox.

For example you can logically not know whether the statement "This statement is not provable" is true or false. "Knowing" that it is true implies that you have some basis upon which you know that or in other words that you have proven it to yourself in some way. But if that is the case you would have prove for something not provable, which is a contradiction.

If you knew it is false, that would mean you have disproved it somehow. But if it were false that would imply that the statement was provable and as such true. So you would have shown that a true statement was false and hence reached a contradiction.

That is more or less the strongly simplified way my linear algebra professor explained Gödel's incompleteness theorem to us in the second reading.


Other typical examples of things one can logically not know is, if the ZFC Axioms are true, that the ZFC Axioms are true or the continuum hypothesis using only the ZFC.


So since there are things that can logically not be known (which has to be established first for this reasoning!) an omniscient being is of course a paradox.

Though one shoud say that is only the case if omniscient is defined as "knowing the truth value of every statement", like it usually is in the absolute cases we discuss here. There are also people who like to define omniscient only as "knowing the truth value of every statement of which one can know the truth value", which is, due to obvious reasons, not paradox anymore.

Even though a paradox for our cases it is of course possible for it to be "questionably true", just like we have "questionable omnipotence".

 

[VenomElite]

Want a non-religious example? Fair enough.

Let's just take principles of metaphysics for example. Anything that is Absolute is conceived as being itself or perhaps the being that transcends and comprehends all other beings. Let's use unknowable since that is the topic. The unknowable is either unknowable itself or is unknowable in relation to the comprehension of all other things. As I said in my first post. Everything is subjective.

1+1 = 2. That is a fact. However, what is 0/0? Well, there cannot be a single number that is the result of dividing zero by zero. Therefore, for most people the quotient would be "unknowable". In relation to an omniscient being, one that knows all would certainly know even things beyond let's say, a human's understanding (including all of our theories) but could that being truly know absolutely everything (unless it is Tier 0)? Unlikely. For example, let's say everything we've come to know is a dream of some entity. We would never be able to know the outside mechanisms of this "dream" but we can know everything about the "dream" from within said dream.

As I have always had it taught to me, everything is limited by at least some form of perspective. You can look at this mathematically, scientifically, religiously, or philosophically and never get the answer because all of those ideas and concepts are based off perspective. It's not a paradox, we just cannot understand it. I know that this may not be an answer everyone agrees with, but it is the answer I will give Sera based on what we've been taught and what we know.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

I'm more interested in the omnipotence/omniscience paradox. If you know for a fact everything that will happen in the future, perfectly and without limit, can you change it with omnipotence? If you can, you weren't omniscient, but if you can't you aren't omnipotent

 

[Antvasima]

Changing the future to a new one probably does not negate omniscience. It would simply reset to the new actuality.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

If you are Omniscient you know everything there is to possibility know within your Verse, which means that you would be aware of all possible futures. So no.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

A being with omniscience would know, for a perfect fact, exactly what is going to happen. Not what could happen, though they would know that too. Sure they would know, what other possibilities there might have been, but they also know which exact possibility is going to end up being taken. The paradox arises when you question whether or not a being that knows exactly what will happen, without any question about it, and is also omnipotent, can they change this absolute future?

I'm aware that to a true omnipotent, things like logic are nothing, and yes he could simply violate the logic of the paradox and do whatever he wanted. But it's still an interesting thought.

 

[Burstchaos]

If an omniscient being exists, there will simply be nothing that is unknowable. Exactly the same as, if an immovable object exists there will be no unstoppable force and they can never meet.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Imo, omniscience is infinitely knowing, and to say there is something unknowable means that there's an end and therefore not infinite, which completely negates the meaning of the term.

 

[Kevyn_S._de_Andrade]

Why would anything be unknowable to an omniscient? If a being is omniscient, this means precisely that nothing is unknowable to him.

The paradox arises when you question whether or not a being that knows exactly what will happen, without any question about it, and is also omnipotent, can they change this absolute future?

He knows what will happen, and what will happen is precisely that he will change what would happen. That is, he knows he will change. I don't see why this would be a paradox.

 

[Sera_EX]

Imo, omniscience is infinitely knowing, and to say there is something unknowable means that there's an end and therefore not infinite, which completely negates the meaning of the term.

Not really Gemmy. Refer to Ven's above example about everything being a dream and how an omniscient would know everything in the dream but not the dreamer and outside the dream. And I don't mean to be "that" girl but this thread is like...five months old so...

 

[Gemmysaur]

Re: dream

Won't that ask us the question, "How omniscient is omniscient?"

Re: 5 months

Wait what? I thought this was like 2 hrs or so ago. I never saw it before.

 

[Antvasima]

We probably should close this thread, yes.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Closing it then.