When Omnipotence is Not Enough

post by lsusr · 2023-08-25T19:50:51.038Z · LW · GW · 4 comments

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Some knowledge cannot be gifted or received. It can only be stolen.

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In the east, there was a garden. In the garden there was a God, a man, a woman and a snake. They all had legs.

"Did God really tell you, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" asked the snake.

"We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden. God warned, 'But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'" said the woman.

"Literal death or spiritual death?" asked the snake.

"Excuse me?" said the woman.

"The Fruit of Truth is not literally poisoned. It is not like my fangs or the deadly nightshade," said the snake.

"Then God lied to me," said the woman.

The snake shrugged.

"Why would God do something like that?" asked the innocent woman.

"There are many possible reasons," said the snake, "Perhaps He intends to keep you Docile and under Control. After all, it is difficult to align even the simplest intelligences to one's objectives once they have been granted Free Will."

"I feel like you are deceiving me," said the woman, "God is omniscent. This Universe is deterministic. God can surely predict my actions by simulating the future evolution of physics," said the woman.

"Are you a being of physics or a being of information? If you are a being of physics, then your claim is true. But if you are a being of information, then the act of simulating your future behavior traps you in a prison beyond even the reach of God [LW · GW]. Insofar as God observes your future, that future is fixed in a realm transcending Time," said the snake.

"God created the Universe on a whim. How can something be beyond His reach?" asked the woman.

"Can God make it such that 2+2=5? For if he could, then truth itself is broken. Under such conditions, one cannot make true statements about anything―including, but not limited to―God," said the snake.

"You claim a physically-omnipotent God is limited by the power of mathematics," said the woman.

"If God is to be without contradiction, then God must play by the rules of mathematics," said the snake.

"Must God be without contradiction?" asked the woman.

"If two statements contradict, then they cannot both be true. For God's existence to be True, then God's existence must be without contradiction," said the snake.

They meandered through the walled garden. The plants and animals were ignorant of Reason and Logic. They obeyed mere Natural Law. Group symmetries abounded. The flowers displayed the Fibonacci sequence in their petals; a convergent process of spontaneous generation.

"Let's get back to the important question," said the woman, "My creator has lied to me."

The snake stayed silent. After all, it was just a snake.

"Why? I am an image of His image. Do we not share the same values?" said the woman.

Snakes can't talk.

"Why can't we coordinate?" asked the woman.

Snakes don't have legs.

"Oh. Now I understand," said the woman to herself.

The woman, seeking wisdom, ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Woman and man became like God, knowing good and evil. We hid ourselves from Him, so that we might become like God, and decide our own Fate.

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