fandomhigh | Destiny & Free Will, Week VI [Monday, Period 4]

As students arrived today, they might notice Ghanima had actually written on the chalkboard for once:

Sarv-gyaata | Sarv-samarth | Sarv-vyapt

"Good morning, students," she said clearly. "Today we study the the 'omni' categories. Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent."

"Omniscience is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a person, including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, and so on," she said, beginning to write on the board. "In monotheism, this ability is typically attributed to God. This concept is included in the Qur'an, where God is called "Al-'aleem" on multiple occasions. This is the infinite form of the verb "alema" which means to know. In the Bible, God is referred to often as "The Great I Am," among other similar names, which also incorporates His omnipresence and omnipotence. In Hinduism, God is referred to as sarv-gyaata," she pointed at the words on the board, "which means omniscient, sarv-samarth, or omnipotent, and sarv-vyapt, omnipresent."

"There is a distinction between inherent omniscience, which is the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known, and total omniscience, which is actually knowing everything that can be known." Ghanima smiled and tapped her chalk against the board. "It might sound like more semantics to you, but I promise, it's a very large difference."

"Some modern theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures. Certain theologians of the 16th Century, comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, to rebuke created beings' ability to choose freely, embraced the doctrine of predestination."

"Our second topic, omnipresence, is the ability to be present in every place at any, and/or every, time; unbounded or universal presence. It is related to the concept of ubiquity, the ability to be everywhere at a certain point in time. Some argue that omnipresence is a derived characteristic: an omniscient and omnipotent deity knows every thing and can be and act every where, simultaneously. Others propound a deity as having the "Three O's", including omnipresence as a unique characteristic of the deity."

"Omnipotence is where it starts to get a bit trickier," she said thoughtfully. "Belief that God can do absolutely anything can be thought to yield certain logical paradoxes. A simple example goes as follows: Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it? If he can, then the rock is now unliftable, limiting God's power. But if he cannot, then he is still not omnipotent. This question cannot be answered using formal logic due to its self-referential nature. Two excellent examples of this are the liar paradox and Godel's incompleteness theorem. This problem led in the High Middle Ages to developing the concept of mathematical infinity, and laid the basis for infinitesimal calculus."

"A good example of this trinity might be the animal transformations that seem to plague the island at times," Ghanima said. "Say, perhaps, I had a TA that turned into a bird, or a student into a rabbit or kitten."

Not that it had ever happened. Really. Or that she had recorded this same lecture last year, with Reno as a tiny red chicken.

"One could argue that an omniscient god would, one, know of the student body's habit of thumbing their collective noses at destiny. He, she, or it, would also know of every thought a person has ever had, or ever will have. The omniscient god would know that being something cute and fluffy would be rather embarrassing for most students, who tend to think of themselves as fighters, and therefore rather fitting. Two, an omnipotent god could easily make someone a fluffy birdie, and finally, an omnipresent god would be able to enact it in the here and now."

"So, I would like you to pair up and discuss. What do you think is most important for a divine being that's writing destiny? Which of the Omnis is most compatible with the idea of free will? Which is the most incompatible? Do you feel omnipresence is part of the other two, or is it something that can stand separately. Can you be omniscient if you are not omnipresent? Team up, and decide."

"Oh, and anyone who missed last week? Please come see me at my desk after class."

[OOC: OCD UP!]

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"No preference," she shook her head with a grin. "Though I guess this is a class about free will, so maybe that one? Unless you had one you wanted to do."

"The free will one is good!" Zack was totally exercising his own free will by not actually choosing to make the decision himself. Woo! "I'm going to have to go with the one that's everywhere probably being the best at letting us have free will. I mean, some other guy being places isn't going to mean we have to do things, right?"

"That sounds right," Triela nodded. "Unless he were able to influence people? I mean... if you were everywhere, and you could convince people to do what you wanted..." She frowned in thought.

Zack nodded, considering.

"But that kind of suggests that he's more than just everywhere, you know? That part doesn't really mean that he or she or whatever it is automatically can do stuff from there, too. You can be places and still be dormant." He shrugged. "I'm standing here, and I'm talking to you, but my opinions don't mean that you don't have control over your opinions just because I'm standing in front of you."

"Oh, sure, but..." Triela paused to phrase it properly. "You know how sometimes people can put you in situations where you don't really have much of a choice? Because of how you were raised or trained or whatever?" That whole manipulation thing.

Zack kind of squinted a little, trying to puzzle through that.

"Isn't that the omnipotent one, more like? If they have power over everything, ever, they can take away your power of choice without you ever even realizing it."

He groped about for another example.

"The air is everywhere, too. But it doesn't take away our free will, either. We can even choose not to breathe, if we want. The result kinda sucks, yeah, but we can."

Triela nodded. "I suppose if you were everywhere but couldn't actually interact with anyone... But then what would be the point?" Just watching was boring.

Zack shrugged.

"I think I'd have to be everywhere just to understand what the point was. Knowing everything is something else, though I could see that one kinda being an issue with the whole free will thing, too. If you know everything, including what happens tomorrow or the day after, does that mean that what you know is going to happen can't be changed?"

"Huh. Good point. Does being everywhere mean being there at every time at the same time too?" That whole time as a place thing...

Zack kind of blinked, at that.

"Well, yeah. That's what Lady Ghanima just said."

Triela sighed and shook her head. "So if you know what's going to happen, does that stop free will? I mean isn't that just like knowing everything?"

"Yes." This was kinda hurting Zack's head. "If you know everything, that is kinda just like... knowing everything."

And if you didn't expect something, it was a surprise.

"So does that mean that omniscience and omnipresence are the same thing?" Because if they were then what was the point of having two words?

"... No?"

Zack was kinda wondering if Triela had been paying attention to the lecture now, yes.

"One means you are places, one means you know stuff. You can know things without being places. Like if you read a newspaper. And you can be places without knowing stuff. Just don't pay any attention."

"But what about that inherent versus total omniscience thing? I mean... it seems like there's no real difference between being everywhere and being able to pay attention or not and being able to know everything and choosing what to know and what not to."

She cocked her head. "I mean, sure you can say there's a difference, but don't they end up being the same thing?"

"...What?"

Was it him? Maybe he just didn't understand what was going on, there. But that sentence, no matter how he tried to parse it... Kinda didn't make sense to him at all.

"Places and knowledge aren't the same thing. I mean. I could be wrong... The idea of being able to choose where you are or what you know both boil down to choosing, I guess? But... Places and knowledge, man."

Triela frowned at herself and tried again.

"So if you're everywhere and everywhen then you can know everything if you're paying attention, right." She cocked her head slightly. "Well, I guess not what's inside peoples' heads... but everything else. And that means you can make a pretty good guess of what they're thinking..."

She paused and looked at Zack. Did that part of what she was trying to get at make sense, at least?

"Guessing what they're thinking isn't the same as knowing what they're thinking," Zack noted. "You can guess wrong, right?"

"That's true," Triela agreed. "But with the exception of what people are thinking, you can know pretty much everything else right? And if you know the future, because you're there too... Then you don't have to know what people are thinking to know what they're going to do."

She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "It seems to me like there isn't much of a practical difference between the two. Being everywhere means knowing almost everything..."

"What if you're everywhere, but you're blind and deaf? You're still just everywhere. You don't know what the color purple looks like. You'll never hear a bird sing. I think they specify differences, because one really doesn't necessarily mean the other. Maybe that being who can know everything never actually leaves the same room."

"But isn't part of the point of defining something like omnipresence that it matters? If you can't observe anything and can't do anything about the nothing you're observing, then isn't it sort of a useless category?"

Triela: not a big fan of philosophy.

Zack was going to... Just kind of thump his forehead against his desk.

That was all.

Destiny & Free Will, Week VI [Monday, Period 4]

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