[ExI] stoopid kwestchyuns

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting Darin Sunley:

> Yes. they are different, and different in a structurally interesting way.

> An omniscient agent contains a structure that is homeomorphic with its
> entire containing universe [possibly except for itself, depending on what
> you mean by omniscience],

I mean omniscience literally as "knowing all", which by definition  
includes the self and all possible pasts, presents, and futures.  
Although I do agree you run into Russell's self-containing-set  
paradoxes in that direction.

> and mechanisms for continuously updating that
> structure to keep it in correspondence with the entire containing universe.

What you seem to be describing here is a quasi-omniscient agent. One  
that knows the present state of the universe but does not know the  
past or future states. Why would a truly omniscient agent need to  
update? It already knows all by definition doesn't it? That includes  
itself and all possible pasts and futures. Since an omniscient agent  
already knows all, then it is impossible for an omniscient agent to be  
informed by anything. Thus all communication directed toward an  
omniscient agent contains zero Shannon entropy/information relative to  
that agent. Thus calling into question whether an omniscient agent has  
any agency at all.

As Will Steinberg observed it does seem to reduce to the question of  
free will: If God already knows everything that is going to happen  
including his own future decisions and their outcomes, then does God  
have free will?

> A totally ignorant agent contains no internal structures with any
> correspondence to the structure of the containing universe except by
> chance, and no mechanisms to synchronize any part of that structure with
> any part of the surrounding universe.

Are not the various physical and chemical equilibria examples of  
synchronization with the surrounding universe? What about quantum  
entanglement?

Stuart LaForge