h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't mean being really well informed, I mean proper omniscience. Knowing the full shebang, everything there is to know, past, present or future.

It sounds really good at first, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would be horrifically boring. Where would you get the buzz of learning something new? Learning a new skill in a hobby (eg a new way to cast in fishing, a new trick to get that effect you want in Photoshop, whatever...)

And most humour involves an element of surprise, or something incongruous - a joke often isn't funny when you know what the punchline will be.

I think it would be dreadful. What do you think?

It would be a nightmare.

Yes, you are right. I just learned how to make € sign with my keyboard - thanks to Gnomon teaching me. It was a small thing, but I got a kick out of finding out how.

There is a theory that you can't be simultaneously omniscient (knowing everything) and omnipotent (able to do anything). Being one excludes the other.

So I'd prefer to be omnipotent, thank you.

Yes I think of it as 'absolute death'...a perfect circle.

Learning is life to me.

I think you can get pills for omnipotence. I get a lot of e-mails about it

Are those the ones that say I'm potent?

When my grandson was three his favourite word, like most kids was 'Why' but he also liked 'how' as well.

One day, after a barrage of questions his final one was
'Grandma, why do you know *everything*?

"How would you feel about knowing everything?"

But you can't - at least according to Quantum Mechanics. Apart from this there is a posteriori knowledge - knowledge only obtainable through experience.

But I do.

Or at least, I know everything I've learnt so far.

I'd have thought it would be impossible to know 'everything' as some things are just unknowable. The classic being what was there before 'the past' or the Big Bang, or what ever other terms currently used...

MMF

>> Apart from this there is a posteriori knowledge - knowledge only obtainable through experience.<<

Beat me to it - absolute perfect knowledge is impossible as some knowledge is dependant on interpreting situations.

Does omniscience have to include future knowledge? If so, then no ta as that would mean my free will is a thing of the past and I'm rather fond of that. Omniscience of actual facts (which excludes future knowledge) could be a lot of fun: you'd be so rich Bill Gates and Croesus would be merest paupers in comparison and you'd have pretty much unlimited political power and influence.

Well said, Stone Art! Heisenberg rules (or doesn't)!

Of course there are some here who would replace the word 'would' with the word 'do' in the title's question.

Hang on - I'll ask my Dad what it's like ...

Mol

And you'd never find another book you haven't already read and remember every detail of...

Mol.I'd ask a hoodie!

Or failing that, an adolescent

MMF

Well... I suppose it would equate death in some ways... nothing left to learn. I suppose the thing left then is to enjoy life, but can you do that when you know everything...

This brings up an interesting question... if God exists, he must be knowing everything right? Since he or she or it is what stands behind it all... but he can only know everything about this universe, can he (lets call him "he")? And what about time, does he know all of everything since forever?

> is to enjoy life, but can you do that when you know everything...<

Seeing as learning is my primary enjoyment in life...and I mean learning in its very widest sense, and that can be anything from relationships, about oneself, poetry, science, creativity...well the list is endless...it's all about process... I'd have a big problem. Comes of being a restless soul.

>>..according to Quantum Mechanics...there is a posteriori
knowledge - knowledge only obtainable through experiemce..<<


I'll bet dollars to donuts that their "proposition" failed
to make any distinction between information, knowledge and
wisdom - which sadly are often used to mean the same thing
when they are (like the holy trinity) three completely different
things with a central, common and unifying theme. (There is
also the possibility of a fourth horseman, Understanding.)
FYI Information
FYK Knowledge
FYW Wisdom
FYU Understanding


~jwf~

~jwf~

Interesting.

So studying something is less than experiencing something?

A subset of the Uncertainty Principle.

Careful, we may be setting a lot of degrees on their heads here.