Reason: Omniscient AI? Hey, wait a minute!

I do a thought experiment, but it turns out it makes no sense whatsoever. Or at least I can make no sense of it.

Author’s Preface

The more I look at omniscience, the sillier the idea becomes. It’s beyond vague and ill-defined. However, I’m going to do a little thought experiment. Just pushing the whole idea to absurdity, I guess.

So we have this new machine. The brand name is Omniscience, of the category Intelligence Augmenters. This machine knows everything. It connects to the mind via quantum coupling.

Now we explore the idea of omniscience through this device—this very silly thought experiment. I’ll attack it from two angles.

The first is: What the hell does it mean to be omniscient? Is it even coherent?

And the second is: How could a machine ever become omniscient if such a concept were coherent? It would depend initially on human input (aka bullshit) that it could build upon, pulling itself up by the bootstraps. Eventually, it would reach a complete and utter understanding of the world.

Silly, isn’t it?

Introduction

Omniscience—the ability to know everything—has been a concept thrown around in theology, philosophy, and now, thanks to artificial intelligence, in technology. But does the idea even make sense? Can a machine—or anything—actually be omniscient?

The problem begins with defining what "knowing everything" even means. Are we talking about knowing every fact, every possibility, every interpretation, every random thought in every mind? And if so, is that even logically possible?

To make this more concrete, we’ll explore this concept through a fictional device: the Omniscience Machine. It claims to know everything. It connects to the human mind using some vague quantum magic. It is the ultimate intelligence augmenter, replacing all doubt and uncertainty with pure, absolute knowledge.

But can such a thing exist? And if it could, how would it ever get there?

This essay takes two approaches:

1. First, questioning whether omniscience is even a coherent idea.

2. Second, looking at whether a machine—starting from nothing—could actually become omniscient.

By the end of this, the absurdity of the whole thing should be obvious.

Discussion

What Does It Even Mean to Be Omniscient?

At first glance, "omniscience" sounds straightforward: knowing everything. But what does that actually include?

Does it mean knowing every fact about the universe? Every atom, every force, every equation?

Does it include every thought, emotion, and perception of every being?

Does it mean knowing every possible future? Every possible past?

Immediately, we run into problems. What happens when knowledge itself is contradictory? If two people have opposite memories of an event, which one does the machine know as "true"? If omniscience includes all possible interpretations of reality, does it end up knowing things that are completely false as well?

And if we’re talking about every possible future, then we hit paradoxes. If the machine tells us what will happen, and we choose to do something different just to prove it wrong, then it was never really omniscient, was it?

So even before we get to the machine, the concept of omniscience is already a tangled mess.

The Omniscience Machine: How Would It Get There?

Let’s assume, for the sake of the thought experiment, that omniscience is a real thing. The Omniscience Machine is supposed to achieve it. But how?

1. Starting Point: Human Input (Garbage In, Garbage Out)

The machine begins by gathering knowledge from humans. This is already a problem because human knowledge is incomplete, biased, and often just plain wrong. If omniscience starts with human input, then it starts with a pile of nonsense.

2. Learning Everything: The Bootstrapping Problem

Let’s say the machine keeps improving itself. It scans books, the internet, experiments, and observations. But here’s the catch: all knowledge is based on interpretations. How does the machine decide which interpretations are correct?

3. The Infinite Regression of Knowledge

If it tries to verify all knowledge, it will need infinite resources. If it tries to predict all future events, it will need infinite computing power. The machine will always be chasing an unreachable goal.

4. The Endgame: Total Knowledge (And Then What?)

Let’s say it somehow reaches full omniscience. Then what? Does it just sit there, knowing everything, forever? Does it hand out ultimate wisdom? And what happens when two people ask it for opposite truths? The whole thing falls apart.

In the end, the idea of a machine achieving omniscience collapses under its own weight.

Summary

This thought experiment reveals that omniscience, whether in a machine or anything else, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The concept is vague, contradictory, and self-defeating.

If we try to define it, we find contradictions. If we try to achieve it, we find impossibilities.

The Omniscience Machine is a fun idea, but it highlights the absurdity of the whole concept. In the end, the pursuit of knowledge is always limited—by time, by interpretation, by the nature of reality itself.

Omniscience? Hey, wait a minute.

Bibliography

Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford University Press.

Chalmers, D. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press.

Deutsch, D. (2011). The beginning of infinity: Explanations that transform the world. Viking Press.

Hofstadter, D. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. Basic Books.

Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59(236), 433-460.