Sniffnoy comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 4 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Will_Newsome 19 June 2010 04:34AM

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Comment author: Alexandros 27 June 2010 09:20:30AM *  2 points [-]

I started writing something but it came up short for an article, so I'm posting it here:

Title: On the unprovability of the omni*

Our hero is walking down the street, thinking about proofs and disproofs of the existence of a god. This is no big coincidence as our hero does this often. Suddenly, between one step and the next, the world around her fades out, and she finds herself standing on thin air, surrounded by empty space. Then she hears a voice. "I am Omega. The all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, ever-present being. I see you have been debating my existence with true purity of heart, so I have decided to provide you with any evidence you request". Once the shock wears off, our hero runs through the list of possible requests she could make. Healing the sick? Perhaps the reanimation of a dead person? Some time-travel? Maybe this could still be doubted. How about creation of a solar system? Or a universe? Maybe a proof of P vs. NP? Alas, our hero realises that any evidence she could request would only be proof of the power of Omega to produce just that thing, not an inclusive proof.

What's more, our hero knows that her thinking is subject to the operation of her mind and the readings of her senses, something she cannot trust in the presence of a vastly overpowering entity. The lower bound of power required of Omega to produce any experience for our hero is much lower than the power to create universes. It is the ability to control only the senses of our hero, become a kind of hypervisor, and simulate all requests. While this is great power indeed, the distance from there to omnipotence is great indeed. Similarly for omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence.

Our hero does not ask anything of Omega, and their meeting ends uneventfully, at least in terms of new universes being created, or problems thought unsolvable being solved. She does realise though, that omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence are not properties that can be verified by a human. If this is the definition of a god that theists are working with, then it is not only undisprovable, it is also unprovable. Taking knowledge to be 'justified true belief', a belief in an omni* god can never be justified, putting if firmly in the territory of the unknowable. The strongest claims that can be reasonably made are that of a being that is very powerful, very knowledgeable, etc. But that is not nearly as interesting.


Now, I have posted a question along those lines in this thread before, with little response. What I would like your feedback on is whether this is a reasonable argument, whether I've gotten something completely wrong in my epistemology, and whether there have been similar arguments made by others. All help appreciated, cheers.

Comment author: Sniffnoy 27 June 2010 09:33:22PM 2 points [-]

Can we not get around this by using randomly chosen questions? And then we have IP=PSPACE, so anything that's in PSPACE, he can relatively quickly convince us he can solve. Obligatory Scott Aaronson link.

Comment author: Alexandros 30 June 2010 05:09:03PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for that link, it was quite good. Any chance you could elaborate a bit on the IP=PSPACE identity?

Comment author: Sniffnoy 30 June 2010 05:37:10PM 0 points [-]

No, I don't really know complexity theory at all, so I couldn't really tell you any more than Wikipedia could.