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

Sigh ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2010/09/100909_seeking_the_endgame_one.shtml

That WS site is an utter shambles, even worse than R3.

My audio ceased suddenly and by the time I'd found the World Service on my DAB the programme had finished.

The 'pooter thing has occurred to me too. I was tipped off that one person was using a program, but I don't think anybody has the motive or resources to test whether people are doing this. Mind you, I tend to avoid people who never lose...

Actually, I should challenge Lamb Man again if I get desperate for points, good idea!

clink

You meanie

Is it true that he no longer looks like the dissipated louche character that bx4 envisaged you as?

I haven't seen him for a while actually.

Oh. OK. Fair enough.

Fraid I need to keel over, I was feeling sorry enough for myself before I realised I couldn't accurately count from 1 to 7 ... soz

G'nite!

You're not alone in that though

G'night!

But I know I'm susceptible to this kind of error, and I do try to check carefully ... and still get it wrong

Not to worry

You're right, I'll worry about things worth worrying about ...

G'nite!

Why does no-one ever both to contemplate the difference between active and passive omniscience, because the latter doesn't necessarily compromise free will in minor matters?

An omniscient agent may not be continuously actively functioning in that mode ... I've said before that I am distinctly uncomfortable, fr'instance, about an omnipresent agent who is like a kind of voyeur, watching my every move including, shall we say, private moments of nose picking and the like (it's a very effective way of inducing guilt imo)

Well, I've bothered and have come to the following conclusions:

1) Omniscience doesn't compromise free will anyway.

2)If it did, then passive omniscience would compromise it just as much.

Found this, too late: 'er'

clink

Is that because omniscience, or lack of it, is coincidental - what limits so-called free will is that one exercises choice based on the available options?

Put another way, it's a /non-interventionist/ god - for which there is no evidence anyway - so this supernatural agent can be omni omni, for all the difference it makes.

If free will is not compromised by omniscience, I agree that it matters not whether omniscience is active or passive. OTOH if free will is compromised by omniscience, then how could passive omniscience (should this be possible) be implicated?

(I'm thinking of omniscience as a kind of continuous monitoring, the routine data not being analysed unless or until there's some reason to review it - although the long view means that this is not done in real time as /we/ know it.)

Yes I think that omniscience just says that if it is an event then it is known by the omniscient agent. But the only reason for an event might be that you chose in a certain way.

On the other hand, if the god really is omni omni then a stronger condition might obtain, namely predestination, which probably does crimp free will.

If free will is compromised by omniscience, then whether passive omniscience is implicated depends on the compromising factor. If it is just that all events are /knowable/ by such an agent, it doesn't matter whether the agent chooses to know them.

Cheers!

" ... it doesn't matter whether the agent chooses to know them."

That's it really ... at best, it's a needle in a bloomin' big haystack.

Reminds me of 'when you're up to you're ass in alligators, you tend to forget the objective is to drain the swamp' - I know that's not quite what you meant but ...

G'nite!

G'night!

I'm back in the 1700's!

Hooray!

And I'm back from Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Before that: Maslow's Hierarchy of Need