If you are responding in the POV of the God figure, no, sorry. Information is a particularly important aspect of the state of being "all-knowing," and if God was limited from future information he isn't infinite, nor perfect, nor all-knowledgable, nor all powerful and hence loses his God status. But if he does know all knowledge free will is an incompatible concept. Theists really screw themselves in the corner on this one.
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Omniscience
- Thread starter atanu
- Start date
If you are responding in the POV of the God figure, no, sorry. Information is a particularly important aspect of the state of being "all-knowing," and if God was limited from future information he isn't infinite, nor perfect, nor all-knowledgable, nor all powerful and hence loses his God status. But if he does know all knowledge free will is an incompatible concept. Theists really screw themselves in the corner on this one.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
I agree with you that if omniscience meant that god knew the future, then that is incompatible with the notion of free will.
However, here...
Originally Posted by Pegg
it means every act, our very thoughts/motives & desires are known to God....he knows what you are thinking right now as you read this.
Originally Posted by Kemble
Hence you just demonstrated the impossibility of free will. Bravo!
... you may have missed a point. It depends on whether Pegg thinks God's omniscience includes knowing the future, or that omniscience means knowing all that is knowable i.e. all that has happened and is happening. Whether omniscience is predicated on prescience is the crux of the argument here.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
knowing our thoughts doesnt mean controlling them.
freewill exists because God allows us to choose.... he encourages us to choose the wisest course of action (even if he knows we wont), thus showing that the choice is in our hands.
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Says who? No, the only thing here is that your common definitions of both God and omniscience are shown to have flaws. That's my point as well.
If omniscience is as I described, then that is omniscience and that is the nature of God. As far as "future" events, such a notion of time is a human conception. There is no future or past within the Eternal. There is only the infinite Now. All the rest is changes in form, rising and falling within that eternal present.
I find the notions of a God who is reading the thoughts in our heads is to imagine God as outside us as some sort of parental figure where you better be good because he's reading your every thought and is going to judge you for them, so you better keep in line, or else. That's a notion of God, not God.
Knowing our course, yet allowing us to believe he doesn't know our course isn't free will in its authetic expression. You may want to to try again.
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You haven't yet responded to the objection. I'll summarize it easier: God can't be limited by time and change from his own creation. Neither can he be perfect without limit if that was the case. When you attempted to hurdle over that your definition of God was a non-sentient being, an impersonal "now" force without a mind. Fine if you have a taoist notion of God, but not an answer for a monotheist.
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I didn't offer a definition of God. I said I agreed that in how you were defining omniscience and God has some flaws. I don't define God as a big guy in the sky. But what I said about omniscience is true from my perspective/experience. Does this disagree with the anthropmoprohic diety of mythic-literal religious thought? I think that view has inherent limitations once you step outside the box a little.
I don't see God as a sky-parent reading my thoughts and telling me to do my homework before I go to bed, or else I'll get it in the morning. I can't relate to God that way, nor that notion of omniscience you offered.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
My son explained shortly yesterday about the 10 dimensions in string theory. Basically, the idea is that time, space, energy, everything is folded into itself. Infinity becomes here. Eternal becomes now. All possible universes and all possible outcomes are all embedded in this point here and now. It sounds beautiful to me and resonates with how I think about things.
Yup.
That's really beautiful. I see this as sort of like an image of God in the Universe. It's sort of like seeing a spiral galaxy in a seashell on the beach. But it is interesting to see in the physical Universe what the mystics have used to describe their experience of the Infinite. I don't believe that that physics proves God in this way, or what the mystics say is therefore "true" however, as some seem excited to say so. Physics is the lowest level of the Infinite, and there is far more to reality than that.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Exactly. There's a deep beauty to the world that goes beyond numbers and reasoning. We can ponder it, and we can live it. It's not necessary that we exclude one for the other.
Agree. A god that needs to be proved isn't God. If we have to prove something that is all encompassing of existence with evidence, formulas, arguments, logic, reasoning, etc, then we're basically arguing for something that is separate from the actual mystery itself, our own consciousness and being. We are. All this, and that, is. It just is. I think the phrase "I am" is not about "that God", but us, our personal being inside this existence of all things.
The infinite becomes finite in the phrase "I am." It's the realization when all infinity collapses into one point. (if you know what I mean)
In theoretical physics, there is a lot of discussion going on about how what we see, feel, hear, and experience are nothing but illusions of a reality beyond our comprehension. Our life is played out on the surface on some black hole, and such. Don't ask me details. I can't explain it, only visualize it.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Windwalker, you know about Mandelbrot Set, right? The famous fractal (very pretty and infinite pattern, infinite algorithm, but finite experience). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
But this might entertain you a little: Buddhabrot. The Buddhabrot is a version of Mandelbrot that looks like Buddha. Buddhabrot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That must be the final evidence and proof that Buddhism is true, right?
But this might entertain you a little: Buddhabrot. The Buddhabrot is a version of Mandelbrot that looks like Buddha. Buddhabrot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That must be the final evidence and proof that Buddhism is true, right?
Sages saw/wrote bollocks? Hindus do not understand it this way. Scripture is sruti. I think we need to understand the context.One who knows the seed, also knows how the seed will sprout. That is how, I think 3 omni-s go together.
I suppose that the three omni-s go together.
Suppose, a person knows the awareness as all that is, it's infinite potential for (so-called) creation, and has absolute control over the awareness.
Will this be bollocks?
I was about to broach the subject of Tuiya. Should I?
I agree. The effort and control is in sadhana. Thank you both for correcting me here.
However, i did not mean traditional control in the traditional human mind sense, exactly as you are not attributing the traditional sense to omniscience.
Control word is wrong. Rather, I should use the term the Slumberless being. The face of the Slumberless being is the prajnaya ghana -- dense indivisible knowledge. The manifest Brahman -- with all splendour arises therefrom.
I think, an understanding of the Turiya-Sahaja is helpful to understand the concept of the omni-s.
----------------------------
In this regard, I am reminded of a mythical story.
Shiva, the Turiya, has Nandi bull as the vehicle, possibly at a lower manifest level . Nandi, is the Manifest Brahman, as the universe. Nandi, once heard a terrific noise and asked Shiva what that was. Shiva said "Ravana is born". Next immediate moment, Nandi heard another noise and asked what that was. Shiva said "Ravana is no more".
At the Prajnya Ghana level, which is the field of mind, the onmiscient needs only to know the seed and its nature. And the Onmiscient is Slumberless, possibly aware of all the seeds going into the field.
This is my understanding.
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apophenia
Well-Known Member
I have no intention to belittle the hindu root texts. 'Bollocks' was my utterance about a lot of the interpretations and speculations about omniscient deities.
I'm not convinced about sruti. There are in human culture many and varied expressions of profound wisdom. For me there is a principle - if I don't know something by personal experience, such as who actually wrote a text, I don't choose to 'believe' something. That's just how I am.
I get that. I presented what I thought was a possible valid use of the word earlier. The general gist of my idea is that omniscience can (if we choose) refer to the witnessing consciousness, which is the knower of all that is knowable - in relation to an individual being, which is what is 'known'. Developing that depth awareness as a practice illuminates the psyche - we discover that the things which we tried to conceal from ourselves are 'in the light' when continually identifying with the witnessing consciousness - and those things always were 'in the light' . By that I mean that we may have had a habit of doing things 'unconsciously' (ignorance), but even then our witnessing aspect was present.
Whether we extend that idea to the extreme, and suggest that there is an Ultimate Being who knows every event in all of reality, is another question again. I personally don't see the need to nail such ideas down. The 'omniscience' which witnesses my own mind is experiential, so I can use the word that way knowing that it refers to a reality rather than a speculation. Ideas about a Supreme Being who actually chose to write a users manual and knows all, are not realities generally known to me ( though on occasion ...
)Honestly I couldn't even say with certainty that there is a continuous witness, having experienced the total annihilation of any level of awareness during surgical anaesthesia. It is weird hearing the nurse counting you down from 10 to 5 and then immediately (apparently) saying "Wake up now, we're done..."
So I just go with the use of the word which relates to what I do experience, and that way the word has a useful meaning.
Well. Sruti is fundamental to a hindu. We do not consider smriti, purana, or itihasa infallible. But sruti is infallible as heard. Actually, there is a sukta in Rig Veda, which says that one who does not know the natue of knowledge cannot do anything with the verses of Veda.I get that. I presented what I thought was a possible valid use of the word earlier. The general gist of my idea is that omniscience can (if we choose) refer to the witnessing consciousness, which is the knower of all that is knowable - in relation to an individual being, which is what is 'known'. Developing that depth awareness as a practice illuminates the psyche - we discover that the things which we tried to conceal from ourselves are 'in the light' when continually identifying with the witnessing consciousness - and those things always were 'in the light' . By that I mean that we may have had a habit of doing things 'unconsciously' (ignorance), but even then our witnessing aspect was present.
Whether we extend that idea to the extreme, and suggest that there is an Ultimate Being who knows every event in all of reality, is another question again. I personally don't see the need to nail such ideas down. The 'omniscience' which witnesses my own mind is experiential, so I can use the word that way knowing that it refers to a reality rather than a speculation. Ideas about a Supreme Being who actually chose to write a users manual and knows all, are not realities generally known to me ( though on occasion ...
Honestly I couldn't even say with certainty that there is a continuous witness, having experienced the total annihilation of any level of awareness during surgical anaesthesia. It is weird hearing the nurse counting you down from 10 to 5 and then immediately (apparently) saying "Wake up now, we're done..."
So I just go with the use of the word which relates to what I do experience, and that way the word has a useful meaning.
Yes. I agree about the witness consciousness, the sakshi. Additionally, IMO, It's like playing 2 - 3 roles. Software designer, programmer, and user have knowledge at different levels. Nothing is external to Turiya. At a level lower than the Turiya, the role of sakshi begins.
Anyway. These are all my intellectual guesses (or gases?
).
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I think this follows what I was saying earlier to someone challenging my use of the word omniscience. As you said, it is something experienced by mystics. I have experienced this myself. And through that I come to see how what you just said happens, what you called gossip. It is this way with all religious or spiritual insights actually, not just omniscience in particular.
People without the experience end up attempting to understand that and project a lot of their imaginations about it. To teach them they dumb them down, or attempt to explain them in metaphors which are then taken literally. Omniscience is interpreted as knowing everything cognitively in the same way you might know where your keys are laying in the house. They take what they know of "knowledge" like this and assume its just that except you "know" where all keys are everywhere, at all times, etc.
But this raises and interesting series of thoughts. I agree I don't just believe something, because that really amounts to just mirroring somebody else's idea without really investing anything of yourself. To say "I believe God reads my every thought", is to just adopt an interpretation of another and call that "faith". Faith is not that. Which brings to my point about things like scripture or sacred writings.
I see those as vehicles for self-realization or self-transformation through not interpreting them literally and proudly declaring "I believe this!" and assuming that makes you 'saved' somehow. Rather the words, originally, were far more subtle than that, and through reading them, not sitting there trying to interpret them using the tools of science and reason, but letting them transport your inner being to higher planes of realization through symbolism, you begin to open to that higher truth within you. Rather is becomes exposed to your waking consciousness.
So you are correct. You should not just believe. But does this mean do nothing until something lands your way? Or does someone actively look within, and take whatever vehicle helps to expose higher truth to them and use them, be those scriptures, art, reflection, creative expression, etc?
And again, there's another word: higher realization. This doesn't mean you have amassed more data and are knowledgeable. It has to do with the type of awareness, moving from complete unawareness in our slumbering consciousness to omniscience. It is a process of awakening, not knowledge in the sense of knowing stuff.
Surgical anaesthesia, deep sleep, fainting etc. are all similar. Scripture explains that these states are dark to mind becuse of absolute homogeneity of the awareness. I go by sruti, which says, this state is the Sarvesvara state of the Self-Turiya.The Sarvesvara is the the God tattva (thatness) that knows the seeds.
As per Vedanta, the witness tattva has to illuminate the homogeneneous mind field of the sleep, wherein the ego-person exists without knowing anything. Turiya, the fourth, can be attained only after attaing knowledge of the deep sleep state.
One need not believe this. But meditators may benefit from this.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
Yep.That's the kind of thing I was referring to.
I agree with this too. I have found that reading a profound text has profound effects. The question of the origin of the text is another issue altogether, and not something one needs to consider - if the outcome is an experience or change of state, that is what gives the meditator a sense of faith and reverence towards the text. Actual experience is the confirmation required, and the only confirmation of real relevance.
Anyway, it comes down to splitting hairs in the end - propositions like 'the beings who wrote it were one with god and therefore it was written by god' or whatever. I just don't feel the need to buy into that.
Here's a nice verse from the Bhagavad Gita, 15:16
dvāv imau puruṣau loke
kṣaraś cākṣara eva ca
kṣaraḥ sarvāṇi bhūtāni
kūṭa-stho 'kṣara ucyate
SYNONYMS
dvau two; imau these; puruṣau living entities; loke in the world; kṣaraḥ fallible; ca and; akṣaraḥ infallible; eva certainly; ca and; kṣaraḥ fallible; sarvāṇi all; bhūtāni living entities; kūṭa-sthaḥ in oneness; akṣaraḥ infallible; ucyate is said.
TRANSLATION
There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible, and in the spiritual world every living entity is called infallible.
That says it for me. That echos what this human life confirms. I don't care who wrote it.
and yes atanu, I know this is considered smriti not sruti
apophenia
Well-Known Member
That's the thing ...they're not. I have had the experience of being aware of deep sleep (and fainting). The empty sky of awareness knows itself.
With some anaesthetics, there is no such substrata of unformed awareness. No empty sky. Nada, zip, zero. After deep sleep, we still have a sensation that time passed. After surgical anaesthesia (unless you get lucky and they use ketamine) there is just a hole where a sense of time would be. It is like jumping forward a few hours in an instant.
So despite getting what you are referring to, and having practiced a lot of meditation, including in very altered states indeed, I had to acknowledge that some anaesthetics switch off awareness entirely, and I know that doesn't fit the hindu theory.
It's nice to hear someone say this. I was a zealous young Christian who could quote the Bible forwards and backwards. For a list of reasons I left Christianity and later identified as an atheist, debunking of course all the mythologies presented as historical and scientific facts. I very much understand how the Bible was formed, higher criticism, etc.
But then as you say, meditation. I took to it like a duck to water, diving deep and far within that Ocean. Many phenomenal subtle level things open to me. And guess what happened much to my initial consternation? Verses I knew in the Bible began emerging into my conscious mind. This was it! That's what it was pointing to! It didn't mean what they taught in the churches, but a whole different subtle reality that is not about facts, but something entirely transcendent to these things. I have become amazed at how there is what I call a watershed point, where the same words hit and end up going down entirely different rivers in different directions. It's the same words they speak, but they are oblivious to the deeper truth.
As you say, it doesn't prove anything about some magical origins. It doesn't mean it was "written by God", as if God were some human-like mind. It means to me, that me, like those that wrote that, were and are joined with that same reality. It's spiritual words, not authoritative dictates from some anthropomorphic deity person up there somewhere. It's Spirit expressed the humanity, and in this sense we are all the Word of God.
TRANSLATION
There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible, and in the spiritual world every living entity is called infallible.
That says it for me. That echos what this human life confirms. I don't care who wrote it.
Yes. And that is omniscience. We cannot "possess" it, but we can open to it. It is pure Awareness, seeing as things are, behind all the masks, underlying all forms. It is seeing the Formless in all that is. Pure, vibrant, eternal.
apophenia
Well-Known Member
Nice.
Although I can also 'reverse pigeonhole' my experience to some biblical texts (my 'theory and practice' background is primarily buddhist) , I tend not to do so because of how easy it is to be misunderstood and type-cast using those terms. Nevertheless I could, if I chose, express my view and experiences using biblical language.
I prefer to find the words natural to me which express direct experience. That is in one way more comfortable for me, since it can sidestep a lot of theological fine-print etc, but also more demanding. What is closest and most familiar is impossible to adequately express. So we just need to 'slip the clutch' a little linguistically IMO, and speak honestly without too much real-time editing.
You express yourself well, btw.