# Could omniscience exist without omnipotence?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-omniscience-exist-without-omnipotence/546373>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 12, 2010, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-omniscience-exist-without-omnipotence/546373 "2010-07-12T08:13:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-omniscience-exist-without-omnipotence/546373/21 "2010-07-13T19:34:10Z")

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> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> That’s easily gotten around by seeing all possible futures; you are choosing which becomes the real present, or you are simply aware that all possible futures happen;

But then you are also aware of what choice you will make, which means either that the choice is predestined in which case you are just following a script and aren’t really an actor, or else the choice you make has no effect on the universe.

> [@](#):
>
> Ah, but observing in itself affects things

Its been 21 years since my last course in quantum mechanics so I’m a bit rusty, but my understanding what that it was the interaction of the wave with other matter in the act of measuring it that caused the waveform collapse. If it was possible to observe the wave without interacting with it, it may be possible to understand it as a uncollapsed mathematical framework, and then predict how it will act the event that causes it to collapse and what the result will be.

Since non-interactive knowledge is by definition separate of the physical universe I don’t see how it can violate physics.

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