From: ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles)
Subject: Re: Is omniscience impossible?
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 19:16:45 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor


In article <2B00B66D.762@news.service.uci.edu> cnc@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Christopher Christensen) writes:
>In article <1992Nov10.223934.3240@newsgate.sps.mot.com> weaver@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Dave Weaver) writes:
>>cnc@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Christopher Christensen) writes:
>>>Omniscience doesn't make sense in a relativistic universe.
>>>Think about it:
>>>
>>>Suppose there is an object at a distance "d" from this allegedly
>>>omniscient person.  The person's latest information about the object
>>>will be out of date by "d/c" units of time (c = speed of light).
>>>If the person was far enough away, you could be born, live out your
>>>life, and die and the "omniscient" person wouldn't know about it for
>>>hundreds of years.
>
>>Your argument assumes that the "omniscient" person is bound in the 
>>dimensions of space and time that we experience. 
>>
>>A being inhabiting additional dimensions of time and space would not 
>>be limited in this way.
>
>Not true.
>Additional dimensions of space, while concievable, would not change
>matters any.  Why would relativity apply to the 3 dimensions of space
>that we now know, but not to "additional" ones?  Special relativity
>can be trivially generalized to an n-space universe.  It still prevents
>omniscience.

 Of course, we have no reason to suppose that relativity *does* apply,
either... and some reason to suppose not. Or, at least that it might
not be relevant. Heard of the wormhole idea?

>Additional dimensions of time sounds like nonsense to me.  Time is a
>fundamentally different dimension than space.

 Uh, you *are* aware of four-vectors, where the lorenztian transforms
are characterized as rotation in a four-dimensional space of which
time acts as the fourth spatial dimension?

>                                              We can move freely
>through space, but not time.  Time has a direction, we can only move
>"forward", to move "backward" through time introduces logical
>impossibilities.

 I have sitting here in my desk a number of papers, published in Physical
Review & Physical Reveiw Letters, which talk about 'global causality
violations' that can result near ultradense, rotating objects like black
holes, under some interpretations of general relativity. I.e. time travel.
"Global Structure of the Kerr Family of Gravitational Fields," by Brandon
Carter (Phys. Rev., Vol 141 #4, Jan. 1966) & "Quantum Mechanics Near Closed
Timelike Lines" by David Deustch, Phys. Rev. D, Vol 44, #10, 15 Nov. 1991
are pretty good ones. I don't claim to understand all the math in these
papers, but the abstracts are fairly clear...
 #1: "...It is shown that in all but the spherically symmetric case there is
nontrivial causality violation... [in certain cases] this causality violation
is of the most flagrant possible kind in that it is possible to connect any
event to any other by a future-directed timelike line."
 #2: "In classical physics the existence of such lines [closed timelike
lines, or causality violations] in a spacetime imposes 'paradoxical'
constraints... In quantum mechanics the first of these pathologies [paradoxes]
does not occur."

>It is the dimension of time which limits our possible knowledge of
>the universe.  By the time you get information about a part of
>the universe, you have moved inexorably forward on the time axis and
>your information is out of date.  By giving this wanna-be-omniscient-
>being more dimensions of time, it only imposes more restrictions on
>the being's knowledge.

 As the papers above show, there can be regions where, by moving forward in
your own subjective time, you can essentially move into the past relative to
the rest of the universe. Maybe. If we're right about general relativity.

>Besides, there is no reason to assume the existence of additional
>dimensions of space or time unless there is some way for us to interact
>with them.  The dimensions that we know of seem to have a great deal of
>interaction between them.  Seeing no evidence for interaction with
>extra dimensions, I have to assume they do not exist.

 We don't generally hang out in highly stressed spacetime such as
around a rapidly rotating black hole, either.

>Conclusion:  Omniscience is impossible.
>Corrolary:   So is omnipotence.

 Well, I kinda agree, but I think it's impossible in practice and not in
theory. Mind you I don't believe in a God, but I think this is an incorrect
way to argue against it...

>|  Christopher  |  Computer Engineering graduate student, UC Irvine  |

Sincerely,

Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
                            || not those of the University of
ingles@engin.umich.edu      || Michigan. Yet.
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA