Why omnipotent is a paradox.

(1) A system cannot completly be described within the system itself.(2) Lets say a "God" does not belong to our system. (The universe)
Then that God cannot know anything at all about our system, because that requires information exchange. If such exchange were to occure, they would be of the same system, and (1) applies.Hence an omnipotent beeing is a paradox, and is an impossible state of existance, in any system.//Technocore

Well maybe its abstract... but it applies to all.
As far as i know it has been matimatically proven that you cannot completly describe a system within a system. It just makes the word "omnipotent" meaningless. it's a no-state I know it won't convice a beliver, since believers are just that. People who choose to belive instead of using reason. no matter what.

Yes and no. It depends what is exactly meant by "reason" here.
And "beyond reason" is maybe not the correct phrase to use, a better phrase whould be "in reach of reason".
Of course there exists things "unreachable by reason" for the moment, and that is why scinece will forever have new things to uncover.My logic only stated that there was one thing unreachable by reason. And that was the total sum of all possible states of the system, i.e perfect knowledge of the system.
Parts of the system could be nearly fully understood.You say that reason can never fully succed. That might true if you speak of it in the specific. Reason is the reciepe for how to aquire knowledge. The optimum way to use reason varies with the problem encountered when talking about it in the specific. When talking about reason in general, reason always succeds, since it is per defenition the best way to solve something.Im tired now... need sleep..

I suspected that.
But what i wrote applies to all as far as i can see.
If you have a completly filled harddisk, and you wants to store a perfect description of what is stored on that harddrive, on excatly that harddrive, how would you do it?
It can't be done.
Try zip it. But hey! now you changed the information on the harddrive, and it nolonger matches what you started with. It goes on forever.

Peter asked: "What if the universe is a sub-system of God?"Either we belong to the same system, or we are separate systems.
If there is to be ANY information-exchange between the systems,
they become the same system.
And looking at the logic in the first mail: nothing can be omnipotent within a system.

You are wrong. Any kind of information exchange does make them the same system. Be it matter or energy. Anything that sneeks between two systems joins them into one system.And you cannot completly control your subsystem the moment you interact with it. See since you cannot completly control your own system, and the subsystem and your system becomes merged.
You can get close, but never 100% control.

I can only argue for my first post, about that a system cannot be completly described within itself. It is something i've been thinking about for sometime. If anyone finds any texts or books written on the subject, please do tell.My point is that a system can't be described within itself, since where whould the information to describe it reside? There simply is no room for it. To fit in the description you must enlarge the system. When you do that the system is changed. Stating that you can fit the description inside without changing the system at all is to state a paradox. As simple as that.I just refered to Gdel's proof since it seemed a bit similar, even though it is about language and logic.

(How do I quote? Cant seem to find it)Yes, it does make the system unknown. Remember we talk about omniscient/omnipotent. The second you introduce the description into the system, the system is changed, and no more does your description accurately describe your current system. What differs is your description. Since the description is inside your system, it also affects it.You say:
"Even in a computer program, you can add a manual to the program nowadays, and that manual can describe everything, including the manual."Thats impossible. How could you possible describe something within itself? It cant be done. It is infinite recursion. You can describe A manual, but never THE manual within itself.One way to connect Gdel with omnipotent is through God's mind. Can any beeing perfectly understand itself with its own thought-process?
Using Gdel it can't. Since Gdel proved that to be able to prove every conceivable statement within a logical system, you must go outside that system. When you go outside that system, you are inside a larger system, in which you cannot prove every conceivable statement. And so it goes on. Forever.It has been taken to imply that you cant ever entirely understand yourself, since your mind beeing a closed system, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself.If a God cannot know himself completly, he is not omni-... in any way.[This message has been edited by TechnoCore, 05-27-2003]

Thanks Crashfrog.I've heard about that book before. Going down to the library now..

Hmm i've been thinking some more on the subject... ill write some more on my first thoughts soon, havent got time now though I was most intressted in the concept of omnipotent as such, universally, but if one were to delve into the specifics of the christian god, the he certainly cannot be omnipotent since he, according to the bible created man with a free will.
Since there is such thing as a free will (according to the bible) god cannot forsee anything really. And hence is not omnipotent.
Its similar to the rock/lift rock argument.