Originally Posted by Zoth
- Omnipotence in a dream still suffers from the same issue of the logical impossibility of omnipotence (and we'd refer to the god and the rock classical paradox);
- Omniscience is a more interesting take, because you make total sense. But then we'd have to argue semantics (important ones here, unlike, like you mentioned, the "half mind creation" which I totally agree with): isn't omniscience knowing all that there is to be known? Because we'd have to achieve omniscience of literally everything, including other the outside reality. Hmm....yeah, this one feels like cheating I'm sorry xD Guess if we settle with a sort of "reality omniscience" that statement would be true.
- No wait, I found a way! Picture the following case:
a) In a dream, while lucid, you project in the sand of a beach random numbers, and a random mathematical operation symbol;
b) As an example, let's say you'd get 21823821x291218= x
c) Would you consider yourself omniscient? Because that would imply that - disregard the origin of each number as a product of randomness or unconscious reasons, because we probably would have to settle with the second possibility - you would already know the answer. Which you don't: the knowledge cannot exist because your mind has not yet created the product of that multiplication. It falls once again under the impossibility of imagining something which you have no "knowledge" of.
That is, as expected, a good point. But...
This may be another semantics exercise, but you might be looking too deeply into the definitional requirements of omniscience and omnipotence. What if you looked at them in the context of the dream, rather than the concept of the real-life definition of the two words?
Huh? you ask...
In a dream, the entire world is you, and yours. Yes, in a dream you cannot possess waking-life omniscience, but, since everything in your dream was created by you, it must on some level be known by you. Yes, (and you're going to love this one ), if you set up a complicated math equation you might not know or be able to deduce its correct waking-life solution -- especially before you've finished writing the equation -- but because this dream is your created reality you can give the equation any answer you want, whether or not it is correct in waking life This is less absurd than it sounds, if you remember that nothing in a dream needs to respond to the laws of physics or the rule of math: If you don't have a problem with, say, flying, going to other planets, or breathing underwater, why should there be a problem with attaching whatever solution you'd like to a math equation (and knowing that solution before you set up the equation)?
Same with omnipotence. Yes, I understand the whole God/rock paradox, but consider taking it all a step back from the logic path* that questions the possibility of omnipotence. Instead of applying the waking-life definition, apply the dreamworld definition: Since your mind is responsible for literally every aspect of creation and change in your dream, without exception or constraint by any physical law, isn't it by definition already omnipotent, in the context of the dream? And, when lucid, if you are able to work with your unconscious (aka, dream control), wouldn't you have access to that omnipotence? I think so. [* As an aside, I have a feeling that, should He exist, God would snicker at puny humans being mystified by that rock paradox, and wonder when they'll finally understand that there actually is no paradox (oh, wait, because He's omniscient, God must already know when that will happen!)]
The dream world is, as far as we know, nothing more than the product of our imagination, memory, and unconscious organization. We, the dreamers, are literally omniscient and omnipotent by that definition. We are the gods of our dreams, even if most of that power rests in the unconscious, normally out of reach; lucidity, however, slightly cracks the door to fully realizing that omniscience and omnipotence, I think.
So, I think omniscience and omnipotence -- in the context of the dream, and not the physical world -- is certainly a possibility.
As long as I'm here:
No. You can't imagine things if you can't have a mental representation of them. Imagine a chair that has no form: you can't, it would be the same as imagining a triangular square.
Isn't imagining or experiencing things that lack mental representation/metaphor the definition of a transcendental moment? Do transcendental moments then not exist? A scientist would probably say they do not, because you can't "bring them back," but I think we dreamers know they're out there.
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