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Jonnan comments on The Least Convenient Possible World - Less Wrong
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Yes, to make it work, you may have to imagine yourself in an unreachable epistemic state. I don't see why this is a problem, though.
No, to make it work you have to assume that you believe in omniscience in order to clarify whether you believe in omniscience, a classic 'begging the question' scenario.
You're right that the existence of Omega is information relevant to the existence of other omniscient beings, but in the least convenient world Omega tells you that it is not the Catholic version God, and you still need to decide if that being exists. (And you really do have to decide that specific question because eternal damnation is in the payoff matrix.)
Omniscience is almost a side issue.
Not if omniscience is A) a necessary prerequisite to the existence of a deity, and B) by definition unverifiable to an entity that is not itself omniscient.
Without being omniscient myself, I can only adjudge the accuracy of Omega's predictions based in the accuracy of it's known predictions versus the accuracy of my own.
Unfortunately, the mere fact that I am not omniscient means I cannot, with 100% accuracy, know the accuracy of Omega's decisions, because I am aware of the concepts of selection bias, and furthermore may not be capable of actually evaluating the accuracy of all Omega's predictions.
I can take this further, but fundamentally, to be able to verify Omega's omniscience, I actually have to be omniscient . Otherwise I can only adjudge that Omega's ability to predict the future is greater, statistically, than my own, to some degree 'x', with a probable error on my part 'y', said error which may or may not place Omega's accuracy equal to or greater than 100%.
Omega may in fact be omniscient, but that fact is itself unverifiable, and any philosophical problem that assumes A) I am rational, but not omniscient B) Omega is omniscient, and C) I accept B as true has a fundamental contradiction. By definition, I cannot be both rational and accept that Omega is Omniscient. At best I can only accept that Omega has, so far as I know, a flawless track record, because that is all I can observe.
Unfortunately, I think this seemingly small difference between "Omniscient" and "Has been correct to the limit of my ability to observe" makes a fairly massive difference in what the logical outcome of "Omega" style problems is.
Jonnan
The whole idea of an unreachable epistemic state seems to be tripping you up. In the least convenient world, you know that Omega is omniscient, and the fact that you cannot verify that knowledge doesn't trouble you.
Argument #1 works in the least convenient imaginable world, in my opinion. However, the OP concerns the least convenient possible world. The existence of an omnicient Omega seems to be possible in only the same sense as the existence of a deity; i.e., no-one has proven it to be impossible. The ability to hypothesize the existence of Omega doesn't imply that its existence is actually possible.
It's been more than two and a half years, dude!
OK, here goes. I made a misstep by involving Omega in my least convenient world scenario at all. But I was right to try to redirect attention away from omniscience -- it just doesn't matter how you get to the epistemic state of discounting all possibilities other than Catholicism or atheism. All you need to grant is that it's possible for your brain to be in that state. Did knowledge from Omega put you there? Did you suffer an organic brain injury? Did your social context influence the possibilities you were willing to consider? Were you kidnapped and brainwashed? Who cares? It's irrelevant -- the presence of eternal damnation in the payoff matrix makes it so. However you got there, you must now face Pascal's Wager head on. How will you answer?
sorry - I was led there by a recent thread.
Given the epistemic state of recognizing only those two possibilites, I suppose I would cop out as follows. I would examine the minimum requirements of being a Catholic, and determine whether this would require me to do anything I find morally repugnant. If not, I would comply with the Catholic minimum requirements, while not rejecting either possibility. In other words, I would be an agnostic. (I don't think Catholicism requires a complete absence of doubt.)