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Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence
#28
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence
(September 26, 2013 at 9:07 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote:
(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.

It means you haven't successfully attacked the concept of omniscience. Call it a sort of strawman, if that makes things more clear...

Quote:
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.

No it doesn't! I *explicitly* said it knows, and not it believes. Plus, an omniscient mind believing something means that it's a justified true belief, since it *knows* everything. In other words, it can't believe something which isn't true, as that would lead to potentially attaining falsehoods as "knowledge".

Quote:
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 Wink )

An omniscient mind possesses all knowledge, therefore any belief it might hold *must* be justified.

Quote:
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.

Unless the mind happens to be omniscient, in which case....

Quote:
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.

Unless the mind happens to be omniscient, in which case....


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:
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 be aware of that which you don't know that you don't know.
[/quote]

For starters, the last sentence doesn't apply to the concept of omniscience, as I have been saying. Secondly, whatever an omniscient mind happens to believe *must* be justified, since it *knows everything*.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence - by Ryantology - September 20, 2013 at 11:54 pm
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence - by FallentoReason - September 26, 2013 at 9:19 pm
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence - by bennyboy - September 26, 2013 at 9:55 am
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence - by bennyboy - September 26, 2013 at 9:03 pm
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence - by bennyboy - September 30, 2013 at 3:19 am
RE: Omniscience Argument Against God's Existence - by Cato - October 1, 2013 at 11:59 pm

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