Logic of Omniscience

Originally posted by DeepThought
Suppose P is some proposition which is not known, then the proposition "P and P is unknown" is itself unknown.

In summary, my counter argument is that the future may constitute a class of propositions P that can be known to exist and be known to be unknown.
Assuming truly random coin flips. I am going to flip a coin. The coin will either be 'heads' or 'tails'. Either the proposition 'it will be heads' or the proposition 'it will be tails' is a true proposition. Neither proposition can be known to be true. But we know the true proposition exists.

Originally posted by DeepThought
But then propositions such as "There will be a sea battle tomorrow." are not true and so are not knowledge.

Why is it not true?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Why is it not true?

You're relying on what is known as a possibilist theory of time. Presentism has only the present existing, eternalism has the past, present and future all existing with the future set. Possibilism is like eternalism for the past and present, but the future doesn't exist yet, so different possibilities for the future are possible. This means that the uncertainty about tomorrow's sea battle is not epistemological but ontological. It may not happen. So although it is true that it will either happen or not happen, it is not true that it will happen as maybe it won't and it is not true that it won't happen as maybe it will. So there is no assignable truth value to the proposition "There will be a sea battle tomorrow." and so it does not challenge omnipotence as the proposition is neither true nor false, but something else. If you had an eternalist structure it would have a truth value, but then our posited omnipotence could know it.

Originally posted by DeepThought
You're relying on what is known as a possibilist theory of time.

So you are saying that in a possibilist universe an omnipotent being could exist but not know the future.

If the universe is possibilist, is it possible to know it is possibilist?

Originally posted by twhitehead
So you are saying that in a possibilist universe an omnipotent being could exist but not know the future.

If the universe is possibilist, is it possible to know it is possibilist?

Good question. The three best known interpretations of quantum theory are Neil's Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation (CI), Everett's Many Worlds interpretation (MWI), and the de Broglie Bohm interpretation (dBB). The latter two may be regarded as eternalist as in dBB there is a particle that is guided by the wavefunction or pilot wave as it is known, at least in de Broglie's original version. However I feel that dBB should in principle be experimentally distinguishable from CI and MWI as there is a back reaction from particle to the pilot wave. MWI is also deterministic as for each quantum measurement that measures spin up (say) there is a real possible world where the measurement came up spin down. In the Copenhagen Interpretation there is randomness as the ontological level and the result of the measurement is not determined in advance. That strongly implies a possibilist world. I do not think that it is possible to experimentally distinguish between CI and MWI.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I do not think that it is possible to experimentally distinguish between CI and MWI.

If there truly is no way to determine which is reality, do we say 'neither is true' or do we conclude that we have found a true proposition that cannot be known?

Originally posted by twhitehead
If there truly is no way to determine which is reality, do we say 'neither is true' or do we conclude that we have found a true proposition that cannot be known?

The problem is that a creator god would presumably know the rules of the universe "he" created so that although it might not be humanly knowable it is not beyond the bounds of reason that the god would know.

Originally posted by twhitehead
In summary, my counter argument is that the future may constitute a class of propositions P that can be known to exist and be known to be unknown.
Assuming truly random coin flips. I am going to flip a coin. The coin will either be 'heads' or 'tails'. Either the proposition 'it will be heads' or the proposition 'it will be tails' is a true proposition. Neither proposition can be known to be true. But we know the true proposition exists.

Just to be clear, this counter argument of yours is designed to show that a proposition of the form "P and P is unknown" is true? Or that a proposition of that form is known?

Originally posted by DeepThought
The problem is that a creator god would presumably know the rules of the universe "he" created so that although it might not be humanly knowable it is not beyond the bounds of reason that the god would know.

Well it would appear that you can invoke a 'creator God' for any situation where the rules of the universe would rule out knowledge you just invoke 'but he's outside the rules'.
I still hold that anything outside the rules violates the definition of entity capable of thought and results in a static object from our perspective and a static universe from its.

What if the creator God knows that a certain proposition is unknown?

Originally posted by LemonJello
Just to be clear, this counter argument of yours is designed to show that a proposition of the form "P and P is unknown" is true? Or that a proposition of that form is known?

I was going for 'it is known that a proposition is known to be unknown. ie it is not an unknown unknown. 🙂

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well it would appear that you can invoke a 'creator God' for any situation where the rules of the universe would rule out knowledge you just invoke 'but he's outside the rules'.
I still hold that anything outside the rules violates the definition of entity capable of thought and results in a static object from our perspective and a static universe from its.

What if the creator God knows that a certain proposition is unknown?

The proposition has to be both true and unknown to any agent to create problems for the idea of an omniscient being. So if the omniscience candidate did not know the result of future coin tosses and they have a definite truth value then it would not be omniscient.

My point in reply to your objection was that in a universe where the future is not set propositions about the future are neither true nor false, which means we cannot build a Church proposition out of them and so they cannot be used to disprove an omniscience.

I don't see why something not restricted by the rules of this universe is necessarily incapable of thinking. What is your reason for thinking they would be static?

Untrue propositions are automatically unknowable (in this sense of know). If ¬K(P) & ¬K(¬P) for some proposition P then we can build a Church Proposition out of it or its converse provided one of P or ¬P is true. So we would then have that: (P & ¬K(P)v(¬P & ¬K(¬P)) which is enough to rule out the omniscience of the Creator. However in the case of propositions about the future, if the future is undetermined, then they do not have a truth value and so no knowledge claim is possible about them. Pace the Ockhamite way out we were discussing some time ago.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The proposition has to be both true and unknown to any agent to create problems for the idea of an omniscient being. So if the omniscience candidate did not know the result of future coin tosses and they have a definite truth value then it would not be omniscient.

I was not asking about an omniscience candidate. What I asked was whether or not a creator God could know that the result of coin tosses have a definite truth value yet not know what that truth value was. I believe your OP says that even a creator God could not know this, and that if a creator God knew that a position was true and that nobody else knew it, but chose to forget that position, he would instantaneously forget that he knew the position was true or that the position even had a truth value.

My point in reply to your objection was that in a universe where the future is not set propositions about the future are neither true nor false, which means we cannot build a Church proposition out of them and so they cannot be used to disprove an omniscience.
But do you agree that there can exist an omniscience that does not know the future?

I don't see why something not restricted by the rules of this universe is necessarily incapable of thinking. What is your reason for thinking they would be static?
I actually didn't say that. I have two claims:
1. An entity external to space time is static from the position of space time. Just as the entity sees all of space-time at once, space time sees all of the entities timeline (in which it exists) at once. The two timelines are normal to each other.
2. An omniscient entity that is omniscient about itself, is necessarily predetermined. Suppose an omniscient entity were to choose to do something. Its past self would know that it would chose to do that. So it wouldn't be a choice.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I was not asking about an omniscience candidate. What I asked was whether or not a creator God could know that the result of coin tosses have a definite truth value yet not know what that truth value was. I believe your OP says that even a creator God could not know this, and that if a creator God knew that a position was true and that nobody else knew it ...[text shortened]... something. Its past self would know that it would chose to do that. So it wouldn't be a choice.

I did not mention a Creator God in the OP, I did in the above post in reply to your question about whether it is possible to know if two mutually exclusive things, not epistemologically separable to humans, can be known. My answer invoked a Creator God as it is the simplest scenario with a definite answer.

If the result of a coin toss were truly random then the proposition "The coin will come up heads." does not have a definite truth value and no agent can know it. This is not a problem for the concept of omniscience because they are only required to infallibly believe things which are true. If on the other hand the candidate omniscience infallibly knew that the proposition had a definite truth value but did not know the result then they would not be omniscient, since then there would be a proposition that was true but not known.

A forgetful Creator God would not be omniscient as then there would be propositions that are true but not known to it.

If propositions about the future are not either true or false then even an omniscience would not know them, because there is nothing to know. I do not believe this undermines the notion of omniscience.

Why would an omniscient entity necessarily have knowledge about its own future if its future is undetermined, in whatever space it lives in? Incidentally what is normal to time is space. You seem to have disjoint spaces, coordinates in disjoint spaces are not normal to each other, or related in any way.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The proposition has to be both true and unknown to any agent to create problems for the idea of an omniscient being. So if the omniscience candidate did not know the result of future coin tosses and they have a definite truth value then it would not be omniscient.

My point in reply to your objection was that in a universe where the future is n ...[text shortened]... edge claim is possible about them. Pace the Ockhamite way out we were discussing some time ago.

So what I think you are saying/suggesting is that if it is knowable God could know it, but
everything is still free to be whatever it will be. God if He has a plan could bump things
here or there to get the results He wants, but the results would be free to turn as free
flowing as possible?

Originally posted by KellyJay
So what I think you are saying/suggesting is that if it is knowable God could know it, but
everything is still free to be whatever it will be. God if He has a plan could bump things
here or there to get the results He wants, but the results would be free to turn as free
flowing as possible?

If there is a God and God is omniscient and the future is not set then yes, I suppose I am saying that.