Interesting thought about omniscience.

[Dhyana]

If that's how you view life, that's what makes it hell

It's a matter of simple facts. First you're born, then you suffer. and then you kill or be killed; and eventually you die. Big Whoop. "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Shakespeare figured that out 500 years ago. "Shytte happens" randomly is painful enough for humans to endure; "shytte happens for a reason" is a downright nightmare; i.e.: There is a method to this madness. Which is what you must deal with if you believe in God as creator. I reject that utterly

Being is suffering; non-being is bliss

 

[ak.yonathan]

It's a matter of simple facts. First you're born, then you suffer. and then you kill or be killed; and eventually you die. Big Whoop. "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Shakespeare figured that out 500 years ago. "Shytte happens" randomly is painful enough for humans to endure; "shytte happens for a reason" is a downright nightmare; i.e.: There is a method to this madness. Which is what you must deal with if you believe in God as creator. I reject that utterly

Being is suffering; non-being is bliss

That's basically what Buddhism teaches, though not the rejecting God part.

 

[Demonslayer]

though not the rejecting God part.

But that's the best part!

 

[ak.yonathan]

But that's the best part!

Yeah whatever, but basically Buddhism doesn't deny nor affirm belief in God.

 

[Dhyana]

Yeah whatever, but basically Buddhism doesn't deny nor affirm belief in God.

It definitely doesn't affirm, though it is not nihilism in the same way as Shakespeare, Nietzsche and Camus

 

[ak.yonathan]

It definitely doesn't affirm, though it is not nihilism in the same way as Shakespeare, Nietzsche and Camus

I never said that it was.

 

[Dhyana]

I never said that it was.

I never said you said it was.

 

[ak.yonathan]

I never said you said it was.

Okay then, I guess that this is just a misunderstanding.

 

[Dhyana]

Okay then, I guess that this is just a misunderstanding.

Yes

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It's a matter of simple facts. First you're born, then you suffer. and then you kill or be killed; and eventually you die. Big Whoop. "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Shakespeare figured that out 500 years ago. "Shytte happens" randomly is painful enough for humans to endure; "shytte happens for a reason" is a downright nightmare; i.e.: There is a method to this madness. Which is what you must deal with if you believe in God as creator. I reject that utterly

Being is suffering; non-being is bliss

Whether your tale is one of fury or love, is largely your choice is it not?

And each defines the other, you cannot have love without hate any more than left without right, and having that choice is exactly what gives them meaning- love cannot be mandated or it does not exist..

A jellyfish experiences little if any suffering, hate, grieving, little if any choice to determine it's own lot, very little 'shytte' to deal with one way or another right?. And hence no love, joy, triumph, or sense of purpose to achieve those either.

would you trade for this 'bliss'?

 

[Dhyana]

Whether your tale is one of fury or love, is largely your choice is it not?

And each defines the other, you cannot have love without hate any more than left without right, and having that choice is exactly what gives them meaning- love cannot be mandated or it does not exist..

A jellyfish experiences little if any suffering, hate, grieving, little if any choice to determine it's own lot, very little 'shytte' to deal with one way or another right?. And hence no love, joy, triumph, or sense of purpose to achieve those either.

would you trade for this 'bliss'?

I'm not going to get into a free will discussion. Free will or not, we are still subject to (another Shakespeare quote):
"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", which is bad enough, in a random universe, but worse IMO in a theistic universe where there is an element of intent.

The nihilist in me is sick of the whole play, random or not. I would not call this feeling "depression". I can get out of bed in the morning and enjoy the day. I have friends, family and loved ones. I would rather call it "existential despair", a pervasive sense of "why bother when there is no ultimate meaning or purpose to life anyway?"

One of the best descriptions of this sense of existential despair vs. depression I have read is this excerpt from Donna Tartt's "the Goldfinch":

But depression wasn’t the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavour from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people kept ****ing and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game. Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn’t he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent. People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbours and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organisations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and travelled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were. But in a strong light there was no good spin you could put on it. It was rotten top to bottom. Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursing home. It was better never to have been born—never to have wanted anything, never to have hoped for anything.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I'm not going to get into a free will discussion. Free will or not, we are still subject to (another Shakespeare quote):
"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", which is bad enough, in a random universe, but worse IMO in a theistic universe where there is an element of intent.

The nihilist in me is sick of the whole play, random or not. I would not call this feeling "depression". I can get out of bed in the morning and enjoy the day. I would rather call it "existential despair", a pervasive sense of "why bother when there is no ultimate meaning or purpose to life anyway?"

One of the best descriptions of this sense of existential despair vs. depression I have read is this excerpt from Donna Tartt's "the Goldfinch":

It's semantics maybe, but I would certainly call that position depression... a lack of ultimate purpose to anything we do, and I think most of us have experienced that to some degree.. not a good place to be.

And I would imagine likewise you have experienced the opposite also
love/hate joy/despair enthusiasm/depression are double edged swords yes? One defines the other like left and right

Purpose, like love, cannot be granted, mandated, or it cannot truly exist- so I think free will is inseparable in this way to experiencing a sense of purpose in life.
And this in turn is inseparable from faith, love of God etc. And I don't think it's a controversial observation; that people of faith tend to suffer less from depression because of this..

How sure are you that there is no higher purpose 100%? Or do you have doubts about those dreams that may come

 

[Dhyana]

How sure are you that there is no higher purpose 100%? Or do you have doubts about those dreams that may come

Only part of me is existential nihilist, retained from high school & college. Now I'm more "nihilistic mystic", such as in Buddhism & Taoism, wherein there is subjective Truth to be discovered, without necessity of a diety

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Only part of me is existential nihilist, retained from high school & college. Now I'm more "nihilistic mystic", such as in Buddhism & Taoism, wherein there is subjective Truth to be discovered, without necessity of a diety

Are you open the possibility of God?

 

[Dhyana]

It's semantics maybe, but I would certainly call that position depression... a lack of ultimate purpose to anything we do, and I think most of us have experienced that to some degree.. not a good place to be.

To me , depression is personal as in "my life sucks, I suck, my life is it not worth living" etc. Despair, OTOH, while it has a personal element, is more general and philosophical: "life, itself, sucks, is meaningless, absurd, insane. And therefore my life sucks"

 

[Guy Threepwood]

To me , depression is personal as in "my life sucks, I suck, my life is it not worth living" etc. Despair, OTOH, while it has a personal element, is more general and philosophical: "life, itself, sucks, is meaningless, absurd, insane. And therefore my life sucks"

Well I see that distinction, though both are personal subjective thoughts as you say. If you think life itself is pointless, that makes it pointless for you, not everyone else. And I don't intend that to be mean, we've all felt something like that

Maybe a lateral approach would be; instead of doubting the meaning, purpose, to life that other people believe- by which you may never change your position..

question the belief you do have, that everything is here for no reason, no purpose- how did that happen? is it really the most likely scenario? You might find yourself becoming skeptical of this instead

 

[rageoftyrael]

Well I see that distinction, though both are personal subjective thoughts as you say. If you think life itself is pointless, that makes it pointless for you, not everyone else. And I don't intend that to be mean, we've all felt something like that

Maybe a lateral approach would be; instead of doubting the meaning, purpose, to life that other people believe- by which you may never change your position..

question the belief you do have, that everything is here for no reason, no purpose- how did that happen? is it really the most likely scenario? You might find yourself becoming skeptical of this instead

Long story short, since you don't just outright say it is "Life has whatever meaning you give it." If you say anything else, you are making claims for which you have no proof. When someone like myself despairs over the meaningless of life, it's because even if there is a meaning, I'm certainly not privy to it and unlike so many others, I'm not gonna make stuff up just to feel better. So, yeah, every once in awhile, there is a bit of "what's the point?" to life, but luckily for most of us, we are generally busy enough just living life that it isn't really an issue.

Oh, and no, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on your last part. The simplest explanation to whether or not there is a meaning or purpose to the universe is no. Our desire for there to be a meaning or purpose, doesn't somehow lend any kind of likelihood to their being one. A rational person will be open to the possibility of their being some kind of meaning or purpose, but they don't have to pretend like it's somehow more likely, because it isn't.

 

[Curious George]

I've been thru this before on RF.

Free will is incompatible with omniscience.
Why?
The omniscient one (call'm Bob) would know the choices we make in advance.
Testing us would therefore be unnecessary.

Yes, but not in this scenario. The poster is suggesting that we exist as a facet of one of the many things an omniscient entity knows. So, we could be the answer to a question that such an entity knows. Our existence and every detail is thus reduced to a factoid. This would not entail determinism.

 

[Curious George]

So, when you get people talking about god, and one of the people is a nonbeliever and the other is a believer, you get some interesting back and forth. One such, which I've heard multiple times, is that there is evil in the world because god is testing us. Well, the nonbeliever declares that for a being with omniscience there is no need for testing anything, as something that knows everything already knows what's going to happen. I actually agree with this logic(though I'm open to other explanations and ideas) but it actually created a little thought I had.

Now, for my thought we are going to simply presume that there is a god, and that god has omniscience. Now, what occurred is kind of just a little bit of a mind bender. The idea is that maybe we, in this existence, don't actually exist. We are simply either the, or a, logical progression of the knowledge that an omniscient being would have. Essentially, we exist, or not, depending on how you look at it, as a thought of an omniscient being, as it asks a particular question. We don't know the question, but it can't be a great one, as if it were something like "what would a universe with only happiness be like?" I can only imagine this would be a very different existence, lol.

So, what do you guys think? Makes sense or utter hogwash? Got any weird or kooky ideas of your own? Share!

I would wonder whether there was an inherent contradiction in the question. A question like, "what does a square circle look like?" Is an example of a question with an inherent contradiction.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Free will is incompatible with omniscience.

By this logic, so is tense. The statement "It will rain tomorrow" is either true or not true, as either it will indeed rain or it won't. Ergo, the truth-value of the statement determines whether or not it will rain. For, if this is not true, it must be that the statement "it will rain tomorrow" isn't true and isn't false today, but will be true or false forever after a particular moment in time (thereby making time a mechanism for granting truth to statements).

Likewise, knowledge of the future/omniscience is incompatible with free will (or at least indeterminism) iff [if and only if] knowledge has causal power. Imagine I know the truth-value to a statement like the above about the future. Then I am merely a substitute mechanism for time. The truth of the statement (that which comes to pass or be) is not caused by my knowledge any more than time causes "it will rain tomorrow" to be true or false; I am simply able to evaluate the truth of such statements before "time" can render them truth-bearing.

Determinism is, I think, best considered as the ability to predict the state of anything arbitrarily far into the future given sufficient knowledge of current or past states. Knowledge of future states without knowledge of the causal processes that ensure them doesn't entail determinism because there is nothing such knowledge entails that actually determines these states (just the knowledge of these states themselves).