Off-Topic

Knowing is only half the battle. If that infinite knowledge is combined with infinite resources then maybe, but knowledge on its own won't do you any good if you don't have the resources needed to act on it and do something.

@MohsinMan99: I realize that it would know how to survive in any circumstance, but it does not have the ability to do so. A conclusion that the brain itself would come to. The construct of the omniscient brain lacks the ability to affect any of its surroundings or anything else. It has no means of mobility or to enact any kind of force or influence. It cannot even convey information. For all intents and purposes, it is simply an object that occupies a space...an object made of tasty, tasty meat.

Hey, this is like having a pen pal.

So I'm seeing a lot of people saying that even if an individual was truly omnipotent, if it lacked the ability to act on that knowledge, it would be useless. But doesn't omnipotence, by basic definition, mean that said being would know everything, i.e., what would be attacking it, how it would attack it, what it's weaknesses are, etc? Thus, wouldn't it stand to reason that a completely omnipotent being with, as the original poster put it, 'infinite knowledge', would know past, present, and future, thus allowing it to place itself in a position of strength, with the available resources to defeat the alleged foe, WAY before that foe even began to think about attacking it? Even a disembodied brain, as one person put it, provided it had an ability to communicate, would be able to manipulate it's way to a position using that knowledge to protect itself.

And I think that while the original poster didn't explicitly state it as criteria, he referenced Batman, so for the sake of the argument, let's say said brain is an average human being with average physical ability and total omnipotence. Taking that into account, there would be very little that could defeat them.

But then again, I've already stated in one of my previous posts somewhere on this site that I prescribe to the theory that anyone with enough intelligence and preperation could overcome any obstacle regardless of superiority in raw power. So perhaps I'm a bit biased.

That said, I do hereby verify my entire point with one single phrase.

This thread is part of Aizen's plan.

@MohsinMan99: The way I put it in my original post was essentially an omniscient object. It sounds like you are making an argument for an omniscient being without a physical manifestation. I'm simply saying that knowledge and the ability to do something useful with it are two different things. for example, say someone was intimately familiar with the operation of a parachute. The know all the ins and outs of parachutes and skydiving in general. Say then that they jump from a plane a mile above the ground, but without a parachute. That knowledge of how to use a device that could save them would not. Likewise if they were and expert on aeronautics or birds, there would be little else they could do but flap their arms until they finally reach the ground. An omniscient being that has no way to meaningfully interact in not omnipotent, or potent for that matter. You are describing a metaphysical manifestation whereas I'm positing something more like a flash drive with survival manuals loaded on it being tossed into the woods. Not a good one either; think like those free 4gb ones that people get for free and work for a week. I think the key difference in our definitions is that yours assumes certain properties of reality such as a metaverse a la string theory and the like, and mine accounts for the single universe we know exists and all of the physical properties that that implies.

tl;dr We are either arguing beliefs or semantics, both equally pointless.

@Oishi_47 said:

Intelligence and ability are two different things. A self aware, omniscient brain in a jar would not survive long if it were placed in a cage with a hungry...anything, but to it's credit, it would know what was eating it.

It could talk him/her/it out off eating it[ and he could develop psychokinetic powers and many more

It would know how to become omnipotent and pretty sure such a kwnoledge is impossible to contain so user would be partly too big for one universe to containt him

Knowing and the ability to do something aren't the same. I think you assume that they are and that simply knowing something's weakness means that you have the skill and ability to take advantage of it.

@sickVisionz: If you know exactly what a person will do, in every way, every thought and consideration they will ever have, and they try to fight you, you would KNOW they'd try to fight you WAY before they even considered it. Effectively meaning you could plan and prepare to the point they wouldn't stand a chance, regardless of their strength. Even if they do get to fight you, you'll know every move they make, making dodging those attacks easy, and you would KNOW that it would have resulted in a fight already, and planned to take them down in said fight.

True omnipotence would mean it would be impossible for you to fail at ANYTHING, because if it was possible for a plan to fail, you wouldn't think of it, BECAUSE it would fail. Circular reasoning, but that would presumably be the way it works: You'd know your own plan before the events to spawn that plan ever happened. You'd know why that event would happen, you'd know everyone involved in it, you'd know what their role in it was, why they were there, what they did there, what you'll do there, what course of action you'll take. Etc. It's pretty tricky to really comprehend, but the fact is that if a being is truly omnipotent, it's impossible for them to fail at anything. Even if they wanted to and tried to fail at something, they would KNOW ahead of time that it would go exactly as they'd know it would. Which is a pretty insane way to think about it, but still.

To directly address your statement of there being a difference between something's weakness meaning that you have the skill/ability to take advantage of it, you may not have the ability yourself, but you would know about so far ahead of time that you would have preparations set TO take advantage of those weaknesses. Past, present, future, it's all wrapped up in omnipotence. At least, that's my understanding of it. I apologize if this isn't really perfectly clear, turns out when you really start thinking about what true omnipotence would be like, it kinda tends to run about.

I have a separation between knowing everything and being able to do anything. But if that's the case, then yes. It's obvious that a person who knows everything (even impossible things) and can do anything (even impossible things) can beat someone who doesn't have a skill set matching that.

@MohsinMan99 said:

If you know it, what's stopping you from doing it?

In this situation where nothing is impossible and rules of reality don't apply, then yes, nothing could stop you. In something more grounded, the rules of reality would apply and those rules have hard limits and constraints that make the impossible impossible.

@sickVisionz: Except that like you said earlier in this thread:

@sickVisionz said:

Knowing is only half the battle. If that infinite knowledge is combined with infinite resources then maybe, but knowledge on its own won't do you any good if you don't have the resources needed to act on it and do something.

The difference is: Even in reality, a person with infinite knowledge/omnipotence would know exactly who to manipulate or speak with to gain those resources, and would know exactly how to use them to do whatever they wanted. Though naturally, they'd know what they'd want before even beginning to get the- GAH. Gotta stop that. So essentially, in reality or fantasy, omnipotence transcends those borders and makes fantasy reality. Laws of physics, matter, TIME, an omnipotent individual would know exactly how to invent or design something to allow the manipulation of these traits. Combined with the resources they could gain utilizing their infinite knowledge, they would be able to build these devices and thus, if they so chose, manipulate reality until fantasy WAS reality.

After all: If you can change the laws of physics, matter, and time, what would be stopping you from changing the world as you saw fit?

... And now this is getting uncomfortably close to the inevitable 'at what point does a person = God'... I had hoped to avoid that...