RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence
September 26, 2013 at 9:07 pm
(This post was last modified: September 26, 2013 at 9:09 pm by MindForgedManacle.)
(September 26, 2013 at 8:17 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: I don't think you're picking up on the subtlety here... there's *nothing* you can say about the omniscient being which it doesn't know of. That's a violation of the definition of *omniscience*. Therefore, technically speaking, your argument makes it seem like you're talking about one omniscient mind, but *since* there's a violation of the term "omniscient", what's happening is that you unknowingly swap out the omniscient mind (via this violation) for a non-omniscient mind, which then we get told "doesn't know _____". <<<< that statement *does not* and *will not* apply to an omniscient mind!!!! It's simply *NOT* the definition of omniscience!
That simply means the concept of omniscience cannot be possessed.
Quote:Another way of pointing out the problem: you say it can't know that it doesn't know something. The simplest and most obvious rebuttal is "yes it can. It's omniscient. It knows *everything*".
Which makes it just an assertion of belief, and thus not knowledge which voids omniscience as a possible attribute.
Quote:What makes you think having *all* the knowledge possible means you can't intellectually justify any one statement? You *know* every aspect of any statement that could be made, thus a justification could come in a myriad of different ways.
You're misunderstanding what I said. What I said was that the belief that a being possesses all knowledge can never be justified, and thus isn't knowledge (by definition

Quote:And since this being is omniscient, *by default* all beliefs it holds are pieces of knowledge.
Only of they are both true and justified. Hence, the argument would demonstrate that there is one belief no mind could ever be justified in holding, and thus isn't knowledge, which eliminates omniscience.
Quote:There's no problem there. That sounds like something someone would say who "possesses all knowledge".
They could say it yes, but it'd just be an assertion that could never be justified.
Quote:But it does know. It's omniscient.
But it couldn't know it, because that's a contradiction in terms of what knowledge is [usually] defined as being.
Quote:But that's easy to do. By virtue of it being omniscient, it **knows** that.
To say that it knows that would entail justification for holding that belief and that it was true, but the justification is impossible here. You can't be aware of that which you don't know that you don't know.