Can a Human become Ominiscient

[So_Indecisive]

So basically I don't understand how full omniscience would work not like I don't understand what it is but I'm pondering the possibility of a character getting it.

So basically every character that has omniscience in stories has a caveat to it and basically it's usually very flawed and can't be called omniscience just psuedo-ominiscience. I'll be naming a couple of popular characters most should know and some of my favourites in xianxa and xuanhanhan (Chinese novel tags, I've read a lot of those).

So Morpheus, the Dream of the endless who is basically a conceptual being born from the dreams of creation and who has nigh absolute control over dreams was overwhelmed by that much power and this, a creature that was born explicitly to fulfill that role, had to separate some of his authority into his cloak and helm because of how much of a hassle it was.
In fact the other Endless and beings on that level also had to create domains where their powers could be more easily expressed and all of these guy's have psuedo-ominiscience as well, with Destiny of the Endless presumably having, wait no his is more potent being the destiny of all creation and all that but even beings like this get caught of guard and can be made unaware of things some people plot against them in the background.

The Source, on the other hand is ominiscient but his doesn't count because he's a capital g god who basically holds all of creation in the DC universe but he's a being that came to be it wasn't an acquired power so that guy doesn't count.

The other example I'd like to cite is the protagonist from "Nurturing Humanity" great read by the way but his situation doesn't count because he is an insect queen/Hive mind that changed all existing species in the universe to become members of his race and birthed the rest.
Even with all that he isn't ominiscient because he is everything and everyone but if he taps into that aspect of himself he'd get turned into a mindless phenomena that is like a part of nature, like thunder and rain because of the torrent of the will of all things washing away his consciousness.
He's Hella strong I'm not gonna lie but this is the emotions, thoughts, dreams and desires of all the universe's life (yes even the microbes) so he basically sealed 99% of his power so that he doesn't get to that point.

Then there is Yin Sen the protagonist of the novel "I am god" who is another terrible example of omniscience as even though he was formerly human he didn't know what exactly happened after he died to make him became what he became( i love the story but the explanation behind how he became a big g god is incomprehensible).
He's ominiscient not because he knows everything but because if he descends his cognition becomes the general trend of the universe itself as destiny forcefully corrects itself to accommodate his thoughts, so the big guy usually exists in the void outside of reality because he'd feel bad taking away everyone's free will.


Most of this examples aren't replicable but I was thinking of there really was anyway to make a human (like human at his core no race change stuff, cybernetic enhancements are okay though) to become ominiscient.

P.S the punctuation is terrible I know I just don't have the energy to edit this.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I would say no because to be omniscient would require being beyond human. Thus, if you were to ascend a person to omniscience they would cease to be human in the process. That said, a human can be given omniscience by a higher power in a sense for using it under the higher power's will or an omniscient being can become human.

 

[So_Indecisive]

I would say no because to be omniscient would require being beyond human. Thus, if you were to ascend a person to omniscience they would cease to be human in the process. That said, a human can be given omniscience by a higher power in a sense for using it under the higher power's will or an omniscient being can become human.

I see. So this is ominisciense by proxy, that could work

 

[RecursiveDescent]

In my newer story, my protagonist could be considered omniscient depending on how you define it.
He can't see every single thing in the world at once, but if he has a question about something it gets answered by his system even if he's just idly thinking about it, and he can observe whereever he wants in the world either in person or at a glance.
He'll also be notified if anything important is happening he needs to know about.

 

[So_Indecisive]

In my newer story, my protagonist could be considered omniscient depending on how you define it.
He can't see every single thing in the world at once, but if he has a question about something it gets answered by his system even if he's just idly thinking about it, and he can observe whereever he wants in the world either in person or at a glance.
He'll also be notified if anything important is happening he needs to know about.

That's basically the level of ominisciense most fictional beings reach, they're only ominiscient when they choose to observe, outside of that they have really weak senses.

 

[melchi]

I would say no because to be omniscient would require being beyond human. Thus, if you were to ascend a person to omniscience they would cease to be human in the process. That said, a human can be given omniscience by a higher power in a sense for using it under the higher power's will or an omniscient being can become human.

This.
Having all the facts all the time is beyond being human.

 

[Tyranomaster]

The brain is incapable of true omniscience. It'd instantly drive them completely insane, and likely render them brain dead. As Paul said, omniscience by proxy is basically as good as it gets.

 

[SailusGebel]

 

[Voidiris]

So basically I don't understand how full omniscience would work not like I don't understand what it is but I'm pondering the possibility of a character getting it.

Well my answer of that question was already said here.
A thing about omniscience that wasn't said is the omniscience paradox.
How can someone know that they know everything, of course some things can be known by knowing things that are in some relationship with it. (Of course that's not the only omnipotence paradox but the only relevant that I know that applies to this discussion.)
Of course not every kind of omniscience has problems with the omniscience paradox, Yin Sen is omniscience by omnipotence ,at least how I see it.

Now I wonder once again why I digressed?

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

So basically I don't understand how full omniscience would work not like I don't understand what it is but I'm pondering the possibility of a character getting it.

So basically every character that has omniscience in stories has a caveat to it and basically it's usually very flawed and can't be called omniscience just psuedo-ominiscience. I'll be naming a couple of popular characters most should know and some of my favourites in xianxa and xuanhanhan (Chinese novel tags, I've read a lot of those).

So Morpheus, the Dream of the endless who is basically a conceptual being born from the dreams of creation and who has nigh absolute control over dreams was overwhelmed by that much power and this, a creature that was born explicitly to fulfill that role, had to separate some of his authority into his cloak and helm because of how much of a hassle it was.
In fact the other Endless and beings on that level also had to create domains where their powers could be more easily expressed and all of these guy's have psuedo-ominiscience as well, with Destiny of the Endless presumably having, wait no his is more potent being the destiny of all creation and all that but even beings like this get caught of guard and can be made unaware of things some people plot against them in the background.

The Source, on the other hand is ominiscient but his doesn't count because he's a capital g god who basically holds all of creation in the DC universe but he's a being that came to be it wasn't an acquired power so that guy doesn't count.

The other example I'd like to cite is the protagonist from "Nurturing Humanity" great read by the way but his situation doesn't count because he is an insect queen/Hive mind that changed all existing species in the universe to become members of his race and birthed the rest.
Even with all that he isn't ominiscient because he is everything and everyone but if he taps into that aspect of himself he'd get turned into a mindless phenomena that is like a part of nature, like thunder and rain because of the torrent of the will of all things washing away his consciousness.
He's Hella strong I'm not gonna lie but this is the emotions, thoughts, dreams and desires of all the universe's life (yes even the microbes) so he basically sealed 99% of his power so that he doesn't get to that point.

Then there is Yin Sen the protagonist of the novel "I am god" who is another terrible example of omniscience as even though he was formerly human he didn't know what exactly happened after he died to make him became what he became( i love the story but the explanation behind how he became a big g god is incomprehensible).
He's ominiscient not because he knows everything but because if he descends his cognition becomes the general trend of the universe itself as destiny forcefully corrects itself to accommodate his thoughts, so the big guy usually exists in the void outside of reality because he'd feel bad taking away everyone's free will.


Most of this examples aren't replicable but I was thinking of there really was anyway to make a human (like human at his core no race change stuff, cybernetic enhancements are okay though) to become ominiscient.

P.S the punctuation is terrible I know I just don't have the energy to edit this.

Reminds me of Gojo's Domain Expansion Unlimited Void. His Domain Expansion grants you omniscience, and by granting you everything, ironically you can do nothing.

 

[John_Owl]

it's been estimated that the human brain can hold approximately 2.5 petabytes of data. Now, the issue with this is that it's not strictly information as we think of it, but that includes scents, tastes, emotions, and physical sensations of feeling and other various bits. it's literally a multi-dimensional memory storage bank.

In order to be omniscient, you would need to know EVERYTHING that ever was, EVERYTHING that ever will be, and EVERYTHING that currently is.

the human brain simply does not have enough storage space for all of that. If, however, a human were to connect to a larger network storage (think like the internet), then perhaps. But then I'd argue that it's not true omniscience as it's not solely the individual, but the network.

mind you, our understanding of the human brain is expanding all the time, so the 2.5PB might be outdated.

 

[vzymmer]

Theoretically impossible.

Full Omniscience can't be comprehended by a human mind, because every information that is needed for omniscience can not be compressed to the size of a human brain.

 

[gaylolis]

i feel omniscience would suck because you'd know all the garbage shit in the universe in one go.

if a human were to possess it in one way or another, they need some serious filtering to prevent information overload and only getting the information they needed that they can possess.

to put it for an example, it's like a human able to access the akashic records with a conscious thought. like, they can ask it, like typing on a search engine, how to gain immortality or any supreme power with no side effects and the easiest way they can go about it, that they can comfortably do in their current state. the records can also make it so that way they took, even the highest powers in the current universe had no power to stop or alter the possessors fate, because it's the knowledge of the true omniscient. it will also directly filter out the most correct answer.

the other example, maybe lite version would be it nerfed to the ground and become library of heaven's path.

while it may not be omniscience in general sense, by having full access to something that has it with a well thought safety net, they can tap on that power in a way that we can understand better.

 

[Ekeriel]

I guess another type of omniscience would be Lin Jie from “I’m really not the demon god’s lackey” (solid read btw) where he was subconsciously aware of everything but until he consciously self-actualised his identity his powers remained in the form of a separate entity. A lot of times authors disregard the subconscious in the characters as it can be seen as a cop out from time to time (since the character has no autonomy or control over this kind of power and it often ends up being simply a story device) but truthfully speaking I think the subconscious is an important part of the human psyche. Intuition or “gut-feeling” as a manifestation of omniscience is something I think is not explored enough in fiction (or maybe I haven’t read enough fiction like this?)

Now that my tangent is over, I think Madame Web from the comics is a good example of an omniscient, human character. She knows about events and facts but tries to orchestrate them in order to push her agenda (as any human would given this power). At the same time she can be moved either through reason or through emotions to orchestrate events in a way that may negatively impact her. Yes, technically she isn’t omniscient but she is as omniscient as a human character can get according to me. Another example would be Leylin Farlier from Warlock of the Magus World but once again, he becomes a god not just omniscient.

I think the reason we don’t see characters like these is because truly omniscient characters would be really boring to write about, there would be no conflict since the characters would just move out of the way of any possible ones which will make the plot completely stagnate if they are the MC. If they aren’t the MC then you have multiple characters in cultivation novels proficient in the Dao of Karma/Fate that are omniscient (too lazy to look it up but I’m sure you’ll be able to find plenty if you look around). If its the MC ascending to this level at the end of the novel then you might as well give em the whole package instead of just Omniscience. There are many other reasons behind this kind of character not being written in fiction but thats kinda my take on it.

 

[georgelee5786]

No, as there's simply too much knowledge. Not to mention, so much knowledge we haven't discovered. In a mere 100 years, I doubt someone could learn every piece of knowledge mankind has unearthed.

 

[Anon2024]

You wouldn't be able to see the world from any singular perspective to be ominiscient, you might also be forced into objectivity.

 

[Premier]

"Become" sure. They might not be human after, but that wasn't part of the question.

 

[So_Indecisive]

You wouldn't be able to see the world from any singular perspective to be ominiscient, you might also be forced into objectivity.

Yeah to know everything is to see everything from vastly different perspectives. Good and evil gets blurred and frankly becomes meaningless

I guess another type of omniscience would be Lin Jie from “I’m really not the demon god’s lackey” (solid read btw) where he was subconsciously aware of everything but until he consciously self-actualised his identity his powers remained in the form of a separate entity. A lot of times authors disregard the subconscious in the characters as it can be seen as a cop out from time to time (since the character has no autonomy or control over this kind of power and it often ends up being simply a story device) but truthfully speaking I think the subconscious is an important part of the human psyche. Intuition or “gut-feeling” as a manifestation of omniscience is something I think is not explored enough in fiction (or maybe I haven’t read enough fiction like this?)

Now that my tangent is over, I think Madame Web from the comics is a good example of an omniscient, human character. She knows about events and facts but tries to orchestrate them in order to push her agenda (as any human would given this power). At the same time she can be moved either through reason or through emotions to orchestrate events in a way that may negatively impact her. Yes, technically she isn’t omniscient but she is as omniscient as a human character can get according to me. Another example would be Leylin Farlier from Warlock of the Magus World but once again, he becomes a god not just omniscient.

I think the reason we don’t see characters like these is because truly omniscient characters would be really boring to write about, there would be no conflict since the characters would just move out of the way of any possible ones which will make the plot completely stagnate if they are the MC. If they aren’t the MC then you have multiple characters in cultivation novels proficient in the Dao of Karma/Fate that are omniscient (too lazy to look it up but I’m sure you’ll be able to find plenty if you look around). If its the MC ascending to this level at the end of the novel then you might as well give em the whole package instead of just Omniscience. There are many other reasons behind this kind of character not being written in fiction but thats kinda my take on it.

Yeah just give them the three big O's (Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence)

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

A human? No. A vampire? Yes.

 

[RiaCorvidiva]

I would say that if any former human became omniscient, whatever they would be at that point is definitely not still human.