On Omniscience

[sdi]

Let's take Sallustius' words as given and assume that the Gods are those beings that Cause but are not Caused. Therefore each God is an eternal fixed point, dependent only upon themselves.

Let's also consider omniscience. A Mind, to understand something, must encode that information somehow. This can either be done directly (for example, our brains can be said to perfectly encode their own electrical signals, since that's what they are), or indirectly (those electrical signals may encode sensory signals of external things). But this indirect form is a lossy process ("the map is not the territory"), which implies that the only way to be omniscient of something is to contain its original, since the alternative is to only have a lossy view of it (and a lossy comprehension cannot be considered complete).

But the Gods are not contained within each other—this would violate our original axiom. Thus the Gods cannot be omniscient—except, of course, in the aggregate, since they collectively give rise to the Cosmos. But there is no way to recover this collective information, as it is broken into disjoint spheres.

In a smaller sense, though, the Gods—even secondary or tertiary ones—can presumably be omniscient of something, if that something is within their causal sphere. Insofar as Apollo gives rise to Asclepius, Apollo is omniscient of Asclepius. Insofar as Asclepius gives rise to Hygeia, Asclepius is omniscient of Hygeia.

I think this lack of omniscience is an interesting consequence of polytheism, and helps make sense of both myth and everyday experience, where it appears that the Gods are "warring" with each other. The apparent conflict is a necessary consequence of the Gods being limited in their domains, but also collectively composing the definition of the cosmos.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

This is an interesting conjecture, and I like how you tie in the concept of loss comprehension, etc. There is a lot to think about here.

I'm not sure I entirely agree, however, as it seems the areas where we try to intellectually comprehend the functions of the gods break down the higher "up the chain" we go. For example, if we imagine a spectrum of spiritual beings (The One --> henads (gods) --> angels --> daimons --> ... mortals), my suspicion is that, the closer one gets to The One, the less any sort of axioms hold. This might even hold within the gods themselves: The Zeus we are familiar with from the myths, which fixes certain attributes in our rather simple minds about the god, is not Zeus at the summit of his powers, in his full majesty (cue what happens to Semele when she beholds the unveiled Deity).

That's not a great answer, I know, but that's just my own personal view. Shades into mysticism, I guess.

On the other hand, I think there is real value in these kind of meditations, as they tend to lead to insights.

Side note and somewhat related: I came across a good summary of Iamblichus's views in De Mysteriis, in case you (or anyone else) wants an overview. It's contained in Lynn Thorndike's History of Magic and Experimental Science Volume 1, in Chapter 11, "Neo-Platonism and Its Relations to Astrology and Theurgy" (found online, gratis!)

[sdi]

You're completely correct, of course: given that our logic works here, but is certainly broken by the time we get to the One, there must therefore be some level between them at which it breaks. The Gods we're talking about are pretty high up the chain, and therefore our a priori belief about whether our logic applies to them must be correspondingly low! Thomas Taylor says somewhere (I can't now find the reference—he wrote a lot of footnotes!) that the Gods exist in some kind of mystic union through their connection to the One. If so, then the belief that the Gods are not Caused is itself a paradox.

For my own part, even if it doesn't apply to the highest levels of Gods, it certainly applies at the more proximate level of beings that give rise to our own world and the conflicts we see within it! (Apuleius, for example, would treat the Zeus we can comprehend as a dæmon, separate from—though in service of!—the true Zeus. Maybe this logic doesn't apply to the true Zeus, but does it matter? We can't even comprehend Him anyway! We might as well deal with the beings we can experience.)

So in order to align our experiences, I'll need to use a more nuanced argument applying recursively to individual "levels" of the cosmos. I'll consider putting it together, it'd be instructive for me...

[sdi]

In thinking about this today, I think I am positing one axiom that I have not yet seen in the classics yet.

Let me define the generation of a being to be the shortest path up the chain of existence to the One. For example, if we work from Hesiod, Chaos, Gaia, etc. are the first generation; Nyx, Ouranos, etc. are the second generation; etc. There's some complexities here: the Titan(esse)s are also the second generation, as they are born from a first generation mother even though their father is of the same generation they are. The Olympians are therefore the third generation (being descended from Titan(esse)s); Aphrodite is also of the third generation, being generated directly from Ouranos. And on and on.

I make the point of the shortest path because of oddball examples like Heracles, who is divine despite having a mortal mother. Being divine, he cannot be of a mortal level! So he must take his heritage from his father.

The assumption I am making is that each generation defines the world in which the generations below them exist. In Hesiod, the primordials are the world in which the Titans and Olympians live. The Titans and Olympians are the world in which the demigods, nymphs, oceanids, etc. live, and so on and so on. I don't think I've seen this assumption anywhere that I've read, and I probably just conjured it out of nowhere.

However, if you allow this assumption, then the original point I was making above is straightforward enough to make here, too: each being of a given generation is causally independent of other beings of the same generation, since they have their being from the generation immediately above. Since the beings at any given generation are causally independent, they cannot be omniscient at that level of causality (though they may be omniscient of causal levels below them, etc).

Your criticisms still seem to apparently stand, of course: I used Hesiod as an example because it is fairly straightforward (but with some nice edge cases to make sure I'm not running off the rails), but things get awfully weird when gets to the higher levels of being in Neoplatonism, so who knows.

Of course, these are all merely models, and any relationship to reality proper is merely incidental!

[sdi]

Regarding lossy comprehension, the argument for that one is straightforward: if you want to be omniscient of something, you need to encode that information somehow (as astral matter, as neurons in a brain, as magnetic charges on a hard disk, as marks on a piece of paper, etc. etc.). But now you have more information about that thing... so you need to encode the encoding somewhere, or you can't be said to be omniscient of the original thing. But if you do that, you have to encode the encoding of the encoding somewhere, etc. etc. etc., leading to an infinite regress, which makes no sense.

[sdi]

Thank you for the link to Thorndike! I will greedily gobble that up, I imagine it'll help a lot with Sallustius—Iamblichus is a very difficult read, and there was no way I was going to be able to manage it simultaneously!

[barefootwisdom]

Ah, but Proclus tells us: "All things are in all things, but each according to its proper nature" (Elements of Theology, prop. 93)

On this principle of "all in each" (Greek: panta en pasin), I strongly recommend Edward Butler's short, 4-page article, "Polycentric Polytheism," which is far and away the most accessible thing Edward has ever published.

To quote one of the key claims there (which is an application of the "all in each" principle): "The Gods, as ultimate individuals, include everything — even each other."

[sdi]

Thanks for this! I think I'm going to have to digest it for a while; I must confess that it makes less than zero sense to me presently.

[sdi]

For my own reference, I believe it's proposition 103 (rather than 93):

PROPOSITION CIII.

All things are in all, but each is appropriately in each.

For in being there are life and intellect; and in life being and thought; and in intellect being and life. But in intellect, indeed, all things subsist intellectually, in life vitally, and in being all things are truly beings. For since every thing subsists either according to cause, or according to hyparxis, or according to participation; and since in the first the others are according to cause; in the second the first is according to participation, and the third according to cause; and in the third the natures prior to it are according to participation,—this being the case, life and intellect have a prior or causal subsistence in being. Since, however, each thing is characterized according to hyparxis, and neither according to cause (for cause deals with effects,) nor according to participa­tion (for that is external of which a thing participates,)—hence in being there are truly life and thought, essen­tial life and essential intellect. And in life there is be­ing indeed according to participation, but thought ac­cording to cause. Each of these, however, subsists there vitally: for the hyparxis is according to life. And in in­tellect life and essence subsist according to participa­tion, and each of these subsists there intellectually. For the being or essence of intellect is gnostic, and life is knowledge.

The argument confuses me, I think I'll need to pick up an edition of Proclus with commentary...

[boccaderlupo]

As barefootwisdom mentioned, that is a good read from Butler...and the principle he mentioned is indeed crucial. To each god, then, as a supreme individual, the cosmos is a monotheism consisting of itself as the totality of all things, including all other gods. As you note, things do indeed get weird as we get to the deep metaphysics of Neoplatonist theory...

Another way of thinking about it, perhaps: if we accept that the gods are ontologically "prior," as it were, than things in the mundane world (starting with "Being" but including things like memory, space-time, et al.), then we cannot readily ascribe any limits to their knowledge. I can't quibble with your description of how information is encoded in the physical world, but the physical world itself is an emanation "downstream" as it were, from the gods. We can speak casually (and even in a more rigorous, scientific way) about physical processes in the mundane cosmos in this way, as it's convenient shorthand; but when we consider deep er ontological questions—and if we accept Neoplatonic theory, of course—we must reframe how we regard the relationship of the gods to the realms that reside "below" them. That's my conjecture, at least.

This does wrap back into Iamblichus, as well, because much of On the Mysteries involves Iamblichus reframing his interrogator's philosophical questions to just such an orientation, and the practical (for theurgic purposes) and theoretical implications of such a reframing.

[sdi]

I think I have something backwards. Didn't Sallustius say (daggered footnote) that Being was not only prior to the Gods, but also prior to Mind and Soul (which are, themselves, prior to the Gods, too)?

[boccaderlupo]

Hmm. I reckon, if I am reading right, that Nock translates it as hypercosmic gods producing Essence (of the cosmic gods), who then go on to produce other things down "the chain."

Will have to dig around some more...I think Proclus may have something on this matter (and Butler by way of Proclus). Regardless, good discussion and items for contemplation!

[barefootwisdom]

There are two options here.

1. Revise Nock's translation (in line with Murray, whom Nock criticizes in his own footnote), to read both genitives together: "Of the supramundane Gods, some create beings..."

2. The option that boccaderlupo gives us upthread.

Either way, hyperkosmiōn is an adjective that requires a noun; we supply that noun—"Gods"—from the previous sentence (and in option 1, it's explicitly there in this sentence, too).

[barefootwisdom]

Yes, my mistake. It's prop 103, which in the edition of E.R. Dodds, appears on page 93. Whoops! (Dodds' index is keyed to the page numbers rather than the proposition numbers, which encouraged my mistake.)

To your more substantive point: Does is help to use the metaphor of a hologram? In my (admittedly limited) understanding, a hologram contains an image of, and can project outward, the entire complex system, but each hologram will nonetheless be unique, based on the point in the system where it's located. In other words, lots of *different* holograms, all of which contain the entirety of the very same complex system.

[boccaderlupo]

Another one from Proclus that may be of interest here...

Prop CXLII(a): The Gods are present to all things in the same manner, but all things are not in the same manner present to the Gods. But every thing participates of their presence according to its own order and power...

Also, Antonio Vargas has a different translation of Proclus's text available for download as a PDF here.

His translation:

142a. The gods are present to all things in the same way, but not all things are present to the gods in the same way. Rather each thing incorporates according to its own order and powerthe divine presence.