If an omniscient person existed would we hate them or cherish them
If someone literally knew everything you could ever ask would people feel defeated and worthless in their presence and resent the fact that there’s no longer a need to explore discuss or discover anything or would we cherish them as the source of all answers
Comments (26)
Why would you possibly "resent" that? There are always people who know more than you, aren't there? Do you propose to spend the rest of your life resenting that fact?
Plus, you're free not to ask if you prefer to find your own answers. I don't see where the problem is.
Especially for the closed minded.
Yes but I didn’t ask about people who know more than you do/are more intelligent perhaps, of course they exist, I’m talking about someone who is ultimate intelligence beyond everything else. There’s a big difference between the spectrum of human intelligence and the existence of a superhuman intelligence that is inconceivably beyond our own.
Someone who can literally address any and all queries accurately. Would we want that? It’s essentially surrendering our intellectual autonomy to an entity that knows all.
Very true. However you could consider them as hyper-empathetic because they are fully and completely aware of each of our individual limited capacities and could address us at a level that we understand and work form there. Plus one would imagine if you knew everything you’ve a lot of time to spare for those who do not. Afterall what else is there left to do?
Only if you choose to. You can always find answers through your own efforts. Nobody is preventing you.
Successful people? They tend to be hated more than loved, and eventually they will be hated. Or not hated, but sneered, jeered, and thought skeptical of. This is due to the tabloids: every golden boy and nice guy is a wife beater, a cheater or a greedy bastard; every nice girl, and every golden girl is a skank, a gold-digger or a bitch. Then they die, and the praises come in the truckloads.
Humans are predictable, but no human has made a proper prediction on humans. Human psychology tries to do that, with less than with more success. People at best place their bets. This is most visible in politics, and less visible, but more prevalent, in marketing.
The biggest lottery based on human nature is the stock market. The tycoons make their money by manipulating it, not by predicting it. And some regularities are noted and known, about the irregularities.
Some people like smart people, and some people hate smart people. And there are an innumerable other qualities for which people are liked and disliked. Smarts is only one of them, and the smart that are hated are mostly collateral damage: smart people who are hated are more often not hated for some independent reason. Like they are fat, or smell bad, of have yellowed teeth.
Do you mean Google? I don't know if it's a he or a she or an it, but don't people cherish it as the source of all answers?
Yes. Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!
About. The problem is that an omniscient person will interfere with the usual way of life. Especially to the kings.
No I don’t mean google. Google is not a person for a start and secondly it is not omniscient. It provides a lot of misinformation and useless information amongst the intellectual content. It’s more of the sum of all human data rather than a condensed unified understanding. Im talking about the existence of a single person who knows everything about everything, everyone and everywhere (correctly)
For example: I’m kind of thinking a king the lines that for anyone competitive or with a big ego or secrets to hide this person would terrify them but for someone who desperately needs understanding or has questions they’ve longed to have answers the person would be if the utmost importance to meet and talk to.
Yeah this is the line of thinking I was looking to discuss. That’s interesting I had the same kind of unnerving feeling that people would hate such a person and demand they be destroyed.
They certainly would disrupt everyday life.
But my question then is why? Thinking of how much good this person could offer to humanity: cures for cancer, the means to be happy, ways to effectively combat all of humanities major burdens and problems, answers the the most profound and meaningful questions we could posit.
Why on earth should we want them to go away?
Would we even recognise such as person as omniscient; would they not seem mad or malevolent to us? What ethical perspectives and behaviours would omniscience bring with it?
True. But i feel people would kind of be like “oh why are you doing a thesis on such and such just ask person X they already know the answer you’re looking for.” Or “why are you trying to win that Olympic competition person x can already tell whether you have the physique and mental qualities required in order to be the best why waste you time trying just ask them if you’re the fastest strongest etc.” Or “why bother try and soul search for your purpose in life person x already knows what your perfect lifestyle and purpose is just ask them?”
I could see how for some the existence of such a human would really grate on their nerves. It sort of erodes our agency in a way doesn’t it?”
Again another very valid point I feel. How would we identify them as human if they don’t have an intrinsic human quality - ignorance. We tend to believe people that don’t recognise their own ignorance as arrogant because we believe nobody (no human at least) can know everything therefore there is only the “humble” and the “arrogant”.
So it would be almost as if we were encountering an alien that was mimicking or appearing as us but isn’t truly one of us because they’re superhuman.
I would imagine the fear of that alone would make some people very aggressive and hostile towards such an entity.
As for the ethical principles I guess ethics is modified by the current state of knowledge. For example it would be unethical to withhold antibiotics from someone knowing they could save their lives. The dilemma only arises with the advent of antibiotics. For someone who is omniscient it would be like either “I must intervene on behalf of everyone or I must not interfere at all. But to intervene for only a few is favouritism” which is unethical.
Now is passivity or non-intervention truly ethical? On one side you’re allowing free will of people to figure it out for themselves but on the other hand you could have prevented a lot of suffering because a). You know when it’s going to occur b) to whom and c). How to stop it.
I wonder do morons have a low threshold of tolerance for smart alecs? Haha. The only type of idiocy I think is moronic is blatant refusal to acknowledge ones own limits. It’s the dunning- Krueger effect. I wouldn’t find someone who goes around telling people they aren’t very smart, in the case that it’s true, to be moronic. In fact it’s actually quite humbling and in a strange paradox makes me see them as much more perceptive and intelligent then they themselves give credit to.
I just wonder would an omniscient person empathise with morons despite their hostility towards people who most likely know better than them? An omniscient being would understand the reasons why moronic people are the way they are and also probably knowing how easy it is for anyone to behave like a Moron at least sometime during their lives, would accept this as normal and expected. It’s only human really we are all idiots at some stage. I would imagine an omniscient being would therefore empathise.
Supposing an omniscient person existed, as some of the other commenters rightly assessed, a lot of us would probably be skeptical as to the extent of their knowledge, knowing our own. But therein lies the paradox of, if the person is truly omniscient than any skeptic is a moron. Ignorant to omniscience. Unaware of it or refusing to believe it.
If an omniscient person existed we would probably only appreciate their intelligence if everyone did what Socrates did and admit that “I know that I know nothing”.
I think an omniscient person could only reveal themselves as such to someone receptive (ignorant) rather than someone who believes themselves to be partially omniscient to varying degrees.
They may decide that the world does not need you. An excess element that only consumes and does not provide anything useful.
And this is at least insulting.
:brow:
There's no reason why the feeling can't be mutual but know-it-alls have an unfair advantage - it hurts to be called a moron but when someone calls you a walking encyclopedia it boosts the ego.
Quoting Benj96
In my case, it's all the time. Yes, I confess, I've been hoodwinked far more times than the man on the Clapham omnibus. I suppose I could feel proud about myself on that score...in a moronic way. :sad:
Quoting Benj96
I don't think that's true. The only difference between a fool and a sage is that the former is ignorant about faer ignorance while the latter isn't. In a certain sense omniscience seems to be about self-knowledge à la gn?thi seauton.
Yes, but this might be the case only in the beginning. Subsequent generations would get used to it and take it as a fact of life.
And would that person still qualify as human? What if people start seeing them as superhuman or divine and decide to worship instead of resenting them?
Yes indeed perhaps they would worship them. But I can’t help but feel they would be assassinated to the lament of their followers. After all we have countless cases of hero’s and superior personalities being obliterated by the worst and most selfish of us for very little more than fear and jealousy
This would only be relevant if everyone else except oneself would be omniscient. Because then such a lone individual would be at an absolute loss. Otherwise, as long as the omniscient were a minority, or an absolute minority of one, it wouldn't matter. Except perhaps for those with an inferiority complex.
Remember, such am omniscient person wouldn't only know your bank card number, they'd also know things like the details of your today's nr. 2 or the athlete's foot in your groin. And so for everyone, going on 8 billion people. Brrr. Perhaps including the inner lives of animals and stars and galaxies? That can't be fun!
How could being omniscient possibly pay off for a human? It might help one commit some perfect crimes, but that's about it. It certainly wouldn't help one in relationships with others, so long as one conceives of relationships as a matter of sharing, intimacy, give and take.
Yes, I would cherish that person. Mainly because many of us, if not all, have questions that cannot be answered by buying material things, or making it big in the stock market, or even being a great innovator. I'm thinking of emotional pains of losing someone, for example. One does want to talk about the loss and the meaning of life, or the meaning of happiness. If one person can answer these questions, such as it is the truth, then I would cherish that person.
Meanwhile, the rest of use not knowing what the future holds still have a life to finish living -- and the roads and inroads we have to travel to complete that journey should be a mystery to us. In this case, we would avoid going to that all-knowing person for the answers, because we do want that element of surprise, that innocence, that thinking about the universe and the infinite.
Actually, now exploring this -- no, we would be tempted to always go seek answers from that person. There are give and take here. Would our not knowing what the future holds be undermined, and that we would just live according to facts given by that person?
It depends on how benevolent that person is, and if that person is corruptible, god help us all.
In more simple terms, kind of a student-teacher relationship. It depends what they ask you to do. Or more importantly, what will or will not happen as a result of failing to do so.