naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
If I create a simulation of a human society on a computer, am I an omniscient God relative to the simulated humans? In some sense I am--I could instrument the simulation as much as I like, inspect every aspect of it in a debugger, etc. In another sense, the amount of data involved likely overwhelms my ability to focus on every little detail. There'd almost certainly be things about the simulation that I was completely unaware of not because I was incapable of knowing but because I had no reason to put in the effort to do so. Do you think there an analog to this with omnipotence? Does a rock that God is "incapable" of lifting because the mere existence of that specific rock is so beneath Him that He can't be bothered to distinguish it fit?
If I create a simulation of a human society on a computer, am I an omniscient God relative to the simulated humans?
I think you're on the right track, separating access to data from retention of data. if the "simulation" is a single integer between one and three, I'd say you have both. If it's extremely complex, humans can have total access, but almost no retention. My understanding of the term "omniscience" is that it's referring to both perfect access and perfect retention.
Does a rock that God is "incapable" of lifting because the mere existence of that specific rock is so beneath Him that He can't be bothered to distinguish it fit?
This would seem to be a question about the hypothetical God's capacities, saying that he's not omniscient, and possibly degrading his omnipotence by his incapacity to aim or direct his absolute power. But saying that this would make him unable to lift a rock seems like linguistic confusion; the simplest way of describing this scenario is that he can lift the rock, what he can't do is find it, or notice it, or however we describe it being irretrievably outside his attention.
If you make a simulation simple enough, then it seems to me that you really can have complete omniscience and complete omnipotence over it in a very real sense, while still being unable to instantiate certain forms of illogical constructs. You cannot invent a story in your head that you can't change, because "story" necessarily implies "changable". You can't make a story where down is up in a meaningful sense; you can make a story that contains the string "down is up", but you can't rigorously describe the subsequent cause and effect, because invalid verbal constructions have no causes or effects.
This would seem to be a question about the hypothetical God's capacities, saying that he's not omniscient, and possibly degrading his omnipotence by his incapacity to aim or direct his absolute power. But saying that this would make him unable to lift a rock seems like linguistic confusion; the simplest way of describing this scenario is that he can lift the rock, what he can't do is find it, or notice it, or however we describe it being irretrievably outside his attention.
I don't think I explained what I meant here. It's not that He is incapable of finding or noticing it in my formulation, but that He chooses not to because for whatever reason He doesn't deign to grace it with His attention. Now that I say it like that, I guess I'm asking if an omnipotent/omniscient God can have free will.
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Notes -
If I create a simulation of a human society on a computer, am I an omniscient God relative to the simulated humans? In some sense I am--I could instrument the simulation as much as I like, inspect every aspect of it in a debugger, etc. In another sense, the amount of data involved likely overwhelms my ability to focus on every little detail. There'd almost certainly be things about the simulation that I was completely unaware of not because I was incapable of knowing but because I had no reason to put in the effort to do so. Do you think there an analog to this with omnipotence? Does a rock that God is "incapable" of lifting because the mere existence of that specific rock is so beneath Him that He can't be bothered to distinguish it fit?
I think you're on the right track, separating access to data from retention of data. if the "simulation" is a single integer between one and three, I'd say you have both. If it's extremely complex, humans can have total access, but almost no retention. My understanding of the term "omniscience" is that it's referring to both perfect access and perfect retention.
This would seem to be a question about the hypothetical God's capacities, saying that he's not omniscient, and possibly degrading his omnipotence by his incapacity to aim or direct his absolute power. But saying that this would make him unable to lift a rock seems like linguistic confusion; the simplest way of describing this scenario is that he can lift the rock, what he can't do is find it, or notice it, or however we describe it being irretrievably outside his attention.
If you make a simulation simple enough, then it seems to me that you really can have complete omniscience and complete omnipotence over it in a very real sense, while still being unable to instantiate certain forms of illogical constructs. You cannot invent a story in your head that you can't change, because "story" necessarily implies "changable". You can't make a story where down is up in a meaningful sense; you can make a story that contains the string "down is up", but you can't rigorously describe the subsequent cause and effect, because invalid verbal constructions have no causes or effects.
I don't think I explained what I meant here. It's not that He is incapable of finding or noticing it in my formulation, but that He chooses not to because for whatever reason He doesn't deign to grace it with His attention. Now that I say it like that, I guess I'm asking if an omnipotent/omniscient God can have free will.
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