Nelson Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 As I was listening to FDR2659 and Stef mentioned again how the concept of a deity can be exploded by pointing out that such a thing could not simultaneously be both omniscient and omnipotent, I was struck by the parallel to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that we cannot know both the position and the momentum of a subatomic particle simultaneously. Voilà! I christen (pun intended) thee, Molyneux's Uncertainty Principle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Fleming Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 Not sure how whimsical you are being but one states that something is impossible and the other states that two things cannot simultaneously be known, not that they can't both have position and momentum, because they obviously do have both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepin Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 I believe that is actually something that comes from Socrates/Plato. It is the result of Aristotle's law of non-contradiction, where something cannot contain contradictory properties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsayers Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 As I was listening to FDR2659 and Stef mentioned again how the concept of a deity can be exploded by pointing out that such a thing could not simultaneously be both omniscient and omnipotent, I was struck by the parallel to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that we cannot know both the position and the momentum of a subatomic particle simultaneously. Voilà! I christen (pun intended) thee, Molyneux's Uncertainty Principle! I dig it. I remember when I first watched his An Introduction to Philosophy series. He covered that and a bunch of other stuff I never noticed despite being raised Christian. Just goes to show a willingness for them to oversell in an attempt to preempt skepticism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wuzzums Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 Not sure how whimsical you are being but one states that something is impossible and the other states that two things cannot simultaneously be known, not that they can't both have position and momentum, because they obviously do have both. I think the two have more in common. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that the more you know about the momentum of a particle the less you know about its position. Same thing with Molyneux's Uncertainty Principle, the more you know about what's going to happen the less power you have over what's going to happen. In both instances the two variables cannot be simultaneously at 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Culain Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Just a rant I'm going to have here, and probably completely nonsensical. Suppose I am an "all-powerful" being and wanted to be "all-knowing", I want to know what will occur tomorrow and with my "all-powerfulness I granted myself the ability to be "all-knowing". I now knew what was going to happen tomorrow and forever-after. Thus, the moment I became "all-knowing" I branched into the path of determinism, all the actions I would take over the course of my existence were decided/known in that instant because the actions I would take were part of my "all-knowingness", thus from this point I lacked the ability to change my future and I lost the ability to be "all-powerful". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjin-san Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Just a rant I'm going to have here, and probably completely nonsensical. Suppose I am an "all-powerful" being and wanted to be "all-knowing", I want to know what will occur tomorrow and with my "all-powerfulness I granted myself the ability to be "all-knowing". I now knew what was going to happen tomorrow and forever-after. Thus, the moment I became "all-knowing" I branched into the path of determinism, all the actions I would take over the course of my existence were decided/known in that instant because the actions I would take were part of my "all-knowingness", thus from this point I lacked the ability to change my future and I lost the ability to be "all-powerful". It's been a while since I read it, but I think Frank Herbert dealt with the boredom and helplessness of prescience quite nicely in his Dune series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Culain Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 It's been a while since I read it, but I think Frank Herbert dealt with the boredom and helplessness of prescience quite nicely in his Dune series. Can you give me a simple breakdown of how he handles it and the logic used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjin-san Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Can you give me a simple breakdown of how he handles it and the logic used. You're asking more than i'm capable of, especially since it's been so long since I read it, but here's the gist: *Spoiler alert* The main character, the result of a centuries-long secret breeding program, has his latent future-seeing abilities greatly enhanced by an overdose of a drug already known to bring out prescience in others, to differing and lesser degrees. He uses these abilities to win a war which frees an oppressed planet's population, giving him an army of what become fanatics of a religion that grows up around him, due to his seemingly godlike powers. These fanatics, which he is powerless to control, then wage a jihad against the rest of the populated galaxy, spreading this religion, and thus rule by the priests of this religion, over the galaxy. His vision of the future also show the extinction of humanity if its current course remains unaltered. Feeling helpless to change it, or unwilling to embark upon the self-imprisoning and violent course to do so, he chooses to walk away from what he has begun. His son, however, has no such moral compunctions, and takes steps not only to acquire this godlike prescience, but near-immortality, at the cost of his own humanity and any real self-determination, locking himself and mankind on a course to prevent their extinction. He does what so many rulers throughout history have done: use his power to rule as a tyrant "for the greater good." We are led to view this as a true sacrifice on his part, however, having committed himself to millenia of boredom, knowing what's to come and powerless to change it except through the forced-stagnation that he inflicts on mankind. It's multiple volumes, which can hardly be condensed into a few paragraphs, but never did Herbert portray these characters as gods in the mythical sense, so we can't really deal with the issue of omnipotence. Well worth reading, in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacbot Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 As I was listening to FDR2659 and Stef mentioned again how the concept of a deity can be exploded by pointing out that such a thing could not simultaneously be both omniscient and omnipotent, I was struck by the parallel to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that we cannot know both the position and the momentum of a subatomic particle simultaneously. Voilà! I christen (pun intended) thee, Molyneux's Uncertainty Principle! :laugh: :laugh: Funny, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that we cannot know both the position and the momentum of a subatomic particle simultaneously. Cute,...,., its a bit more complicated than that,.., above is a result of what we phycisist call ensemble statistics...at the moment of any singular measurement you will know speed and momentum extreemly accuratly......., same words in physics can have different meaning then words outside of the field,.., but thats just what it is, we have to use language too)).. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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