Can a being know if It knows everything?

[GameOver22]

Jay520 said:

GameOver22 said:

kain_kusanagi said:

It's all a matter of perspective. An omniscient being looking in on our universe from the outside can know all there is to know about our universe. From our perspective it knows all that there is to know. It could even know all there is to know about all universes, but we wouldn't see a difference if we could even understand that level of knowing.

You assume that an omniscient being has a limit to it's ability to know. A truly omniscient being could in fact know all things past, present and future. It could exist in all places at all times. It could be all things and know what it is to be those things.

An all powerful and all knowing being could even create a version of itself that doesn't know all things and then reintegrate to experience not knowing something. Or it could just know that all ready.

This. Its really about frame of reference. For a temporally situated being with a subjective view point, I think I would concede that they couldn't know everything because of their inability to view all possible observations. For non-physical, objective beings, I would say omniscience is still possible because, as you said, its possible for them to view everything with no constraints on their observations.

How could a being know he had no constraints? It may appear that his observation unlimited. But from his perspective, there could be things outside of His perspective. Of course he cannont verify that. Which leaves the being with at least one fact he does not know. Therefore he cannot know everything.

Here's a quote the articulates my point we better than I am.

" All intelligent sentient beings must realize that without verification from other beings than itself or from science, it cannot know if it is correct in its world view. It doesn't matter how intelligent or knowledgeable a being is - if that being wants to verify its knowledge to make sure that it is correct then it needs to look to something more intelligent than itself, or to science. But what if you are the creator of science? You couldn't then use your own construct to test if your own construct was true, it would be an invalid test. If god attempted to find out if it did indeed know everything, it would realize that it has no way to know. How does it know it knows everything? It merely thinks it does. God has no test, method or possibility of finding out if it does indeed know everything. It could itself be a created being, with another creator hiding secretly behind it. It wouldn't know. In short, it does not and cannot know if this is true. God does not know everything and is not omniscient. In fact, no being can know everything because no being, however creative or perfect, can verify that its own knowledge is complete"

Its the fundamental difference between having an objective and a subjective view. In our world, I can say that I don't know what I don't know becuase I have a perspective that is limited by both time and place. There might always be some unobserved instance that I cannot view. An omniscient being, by definition, must exist outside time and space. The reason it knows everything is because it can observe all possible states of the world from a "distanced" perspective (I always though Nagel's "view from nowhere" was an apt discription). The reason there are no constraints on its knowledge is the fact that all observations are in its frame of reference at one time.

In terms of the quote you provided, its focusing on the justification aspect of knowledge. The problem is that not all knolwledge can be justified. This was realized as far back as Aristotle. You would essentially have an infinite chain of argumentation where you keep searching for a justification for each subsequent justification. This is what has led to the idea of foundationalism-the idea that our knowledge is grounded on foundational truths, untestable beliefs (the obvious ones being the rules of logic) that we take as self-evident. The same thing would happen if you kept asking an omniscient being to justify thier knowledge-the argument has to end at some point and would rest on a foundational view of knowledge.

I could say some more, but I think two paragraphs are good for now. : )