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!)

[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."