weird philosophy stuff (elijah, come here!)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Actually, there is an argument against the possibility of omniscience. It's the fact that you simply can't fit the knowledge of all that is the universe into something that is not the universe.

That is the killer argument, and an important one. As everything that exists is in the universe, and only detectable things exist (if you can't detect it AT ALL, i.e. it has no effect on the universe, then Occam's razor cuts it out), the total data storage capacity of the universe is exactly enough to store the most memory-efficient representation of the universe. For example, the fact that particle A has X velocity is stored inside particle A (not literally, you understand what I mean).

[Kuciwalker]

Sky: What you're doing is looking at the possibility of other logical systems within the confines of your own. In effect, viewing it with tinted glasses, thus reaching your conclusion. Logic A says logic B cannot exist. I believe you can use logic A to prove logic B, but thats is beyond me, hence I posted the question on Ektopos:

I haven't proved it, of course (you can't), but I'm confident that any other logical system, viewed from within itself, would be internally inconsistent and thus would come to the conclusion that the logic system we use is the only internally consistent one, and thus the correct one.

[Whaleboy]

I haven't proved it, of course (you can't), but I'm confident that any other logical system, viewed from within itself, would be internally inconsistent and thus would come to the conclusion that the logic system we use is the only internally consistent one, and thus the correct one.

Understood. However, you need to provide evidence for this, a philosophical or logical proof. Those who are opposed to your position need only provide one, or the premise for one, that is different.

[Kuciwalker]

Quite true. However, attempting this feat would be difficult for ONE logical system (so hard to wrap your mind around it), let alone an infinite number of them

[LDiCesare]

I haven't proved it, of course (you can't), but I'm confident that any other logical system, viewed from within itself, would be internally inconsistent and thus would come to the conclusion that the logic system we use is the only internally consistent one, and thus the correct one.

Wrong. A true/false/maybe logic works and is NOT the locig math are based upon.
A logic where you can't prove things by contraposition works too, although it's very limitating.
Both logics have strong ties with ours, as they are a superset and a subset, but both are different and still consistent.

[Kuciwalker]

Any "subset" of our logical system is not its own logic system relative to ours. Also, wrt fuzzy logic, it's part of our logic system, isn't it?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lorizael

Actually, there is an argument against the possibility of omniscience. It's the fact that you simply can't fit the knowledge of all that is the universe into something that is not the universe.

That sounds spuriously metaphysical.

Your argument up there stated that an individual - someone distcint and separate from other individuals, and thus not omnipresent - was omniscient, and that doesn't really hold. An individual that is not omnipresent is necessarily finite, and so cannot hold the data set of the universe.

There is no logical connection between being omniscient and omnipresent. You could water it down a bit and still have a good argument - an interpreter who knows everything it is possible for a human being to know, for example.

The omniscient interpreter is just a device to show us that most of our beliefs must be true, belief being what it is.

[child of Thor]

Ok so there are lots of theoretical possibilites for the state of our existence, either real and material or not - but has anyone actualy experienced anything weird, that might explain further.......for example i'm thinking that 'God' is part of our human condition that stems from an important source.
Either as some kind of leftover residue as 'Programmer' of our universe/experiment(like he left comments in some peoples/things code), or as a more organic structure as in the formal construct of the ancestor memmory of our tribal cheif.

For example i dont realy subscribe to any of the main religions as we have interpreted them, but i do have a feeling for something(with intelligence) that is beyond our physical reality. And I dont know why. Is it part of my human/simian ancestor memmories, buried deep within my brain or is it that i've been left with a 'comment' in my code that makes we wonder about it?
Or am i just crazy?

I think studying the imperfections in life are the places where we will find most of the interesting answers(in science as well as in myth).

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Agathon
That sounds spuriously metaphysical.

There is no logical connection between being omniscient and omnipresent. You could water it down a bit and still have a good argument - an interpreter who knows everything it is possible for a human being to know, for example.

The omniscient interpreter is just a device to show us that most of our beliefs must be true, belief being what it is.

When you get right down to it, we are only aware of objects within the universe indirectly. We sense the effect that objects/particles/waves and all sorts of things have on other things, and we measure the effects of these actions to determine what it is that we are sensing.

Seeing is not believing. Our brain interprets the electrical signals sents from our eyes that are generated by contact with photons that emanate from an object that is attempting to bring its electrons to a lower energy level after having been bombarded by other photons.

Information about the universe must be stored in a part of the universe, or else there is no place for it. Now, if we want to know everything there is to know about the universe, then every object within the universe must act on another object so that its properties can be witnessed and interpreted in some way.

As such, the only way that you can know everything about the universe is if you are in direct contact with everything in the universe, so that you have the opportunity to be aware of every action and reaction.

Omniscience, without going into supernatural things, requires omnipresence.

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, omniscience requires BEING the universe, which is slightly more than omnipresence

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, omniscience requires BEING the universe, which is slightly more than omnipresence

[LDiCesare]

Omniscience doesn't require being the universe. If you are outside the universe, in a bigger thing, you may very well be omniscient with regards to the universe.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lorizael

When you get right down to it, we are only aware of objects within the universe indirectly. We sense the effect that objects/particles/waves and all sorts of things have on other things, and we measure the effects of these actions to determine what it is that we are sensing.

I don't think this has much to do with justifying our beliefs. The objects of my beliefs are real things like trees and people, not private sensory states. In fact, no one has been able to detect such things. There are causal states of our sense organs and the like, but these have no place in justifying our knowledge of the external world (although they explain how it is possible). They are the object of science, not philosophy.

Seeing is not believing. Our brain interprets the electrical signals sents from our eyes that are generated by contact with photons that emanate from an object that is attempting to bring its electrons to a lower energy level after having been bombarded by other photons.

Yes, this is how our cognitive equipment works (as far as we know). That is a causal account, not a justificatory account. You can't infer from that to some kind of phenomalism.

Information about the universe must be stored in a part of the universe, or else there is no place for it. Now, if we want to know everything there is to know about the universe, then every object within the universe must act on another object so that its properties can be witnessed and interpreted in some way.

I believe this is an error. Knowledge is knowledge of propositions, not of things. The notion that our mind has some special relationship to things has been a cause of many philosophical difficulties, because people didn't examine this picture sufficiently.

As such, the only way that you can know everything about the universe is if you are in direct contact with everything in the universe, so that you have the opportunity to be aware of every action and reaction.

I find that absurd. I can know what the specific atomic weight of hydrogen is without being in touch with hydrogen. I can know that 2+2=4 without being in touch with some strange abstract object.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Omniscience doesn't require being the universe. If you are outside the universe, in a bigger thing, you may very well be omniscient with regards to the universe.

Again, how can you be "outside the universe"? Unless we are using the "region of spacetime" definition, in which case yes, my statement is false. However, in that case, knowledge of the "universe" would also be useless.

[Ramo]

All three premises seem pretty spurios to me.

1. Is there an objective universe? I'll suppose it means that there is only one "true" interpretation for a universe. That is to say, every aspect of the universe has one "true" state. I'll provide a refutation of this premise in non-abstract terms - physical ideas:

The only time you can absolutely know a physical quantity (position, momentum, energy, etc.) of a physical object is if its wavefunction is an eigenfunction of the operator you're trying to measure (i.e. if A|x> = a|x>, where A is the operator, |x> is the wave function, and a is a real number). For most of the time, this isn't the case, so you can't find a definite result for what you're trying to measure as there simply isn't one. So the logical conclusion is that there is no objective universe.

As for whether a meaningful philosophy can be built on the idea that there is not objective universe, I don't see any good reason why not.

2. I the universe deterministic? No, it isn't (assuming of course physical measurements have largely been correct this past century). Rather, the universe is probabilistic. For the reason stated above.

3. Can a non-self-aware entity come up with the idea of self-awareness? Well, what is self-awareness, exactly?

4. Seems valid, although it shouldn't have anything to do with deterministic physics. As long as self-awareness is not a super-natural property (i.e. having to do with things not affected by physical laws - say "God"), that should be a natural conclusion.

5. Like 4 I don't see how it has anything to do with the rest. There's no reason why it shouldn't be true.

Really, the only premise you need for 4 and 5 (which are pretty much independent) is that the physical laws determine sentience. Which you can't prove since we know very little about sentience.