RE: Goldilocks world

From: Jesse Mazer <lasermazer.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 04:41:31 -0500

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>George Levy writes:
>
>>Along the line of Jorge Luis Borges a blackboard covered in chalk contains
>>the library of Babel (everything) but no information. Similarly a white
>>board covered with ink also contains no information.
>>Interestingly, information is minimized or actually goes to zero when the
>>world is too large as the plenitude, or too small. Information is
>>maximized when the world is neither too large nor too small. We live in a
>>Goldilock world.
>
>Can we talk about knowledge or intelligence in a similar way? A rock is
>completely stupid and ignorant. A human has some knowledge and some
>intelligence (the Goldilocks case). God is said to be omniscient:
>infinitely knowlegeable, infinitely intelligent. Doesn't this mean that God
>is the equivalent of the blackboard covered in chalk, or the rock?
>
>Stathis Papaioannou

Hmm...but isn't it relevant that an omniscient being is only supposed to
know all *true* information, while the blackboard covered in chalk or
Borges' library would contain all sentences, both true and false? It's like
the difference between the set of all possible grammatical statements about
arithmetic, and the set of all grammatical statements about arithmetic that
are actually true (1+1=2 but not 1+1=3).

Jesse
Received on Tue Nov 22 2005 - 05:02:27 PST