Fresco's Law

Ok, imagine you're God. You're omni-present, omnipotent, and omniscient. You get bored with nothing, so you create the universe, but immediately you're bored out of you're fricken god-mind again. You have this entire universe to play with but it's useless. That omniscience, which seemed cool at first is actually a bummer. You know absolutely everything about everything there ever was, is, and ever could possibly be. You could throw around some planets and stuff and watch ‘em explode, but what's the point? You already know exactly what will happen, down to the individual quarks that make up the atoms of the planets. You can see it in your mind without having to do it. It's sorta like a human living in a universe where the only thing they can do is add 1 and 1 together for their entire existence. They can do it over and over again, but the answer will always be 2, and they know it.

So here you are, with a brand new universe, but already it's boring, because you actually know it from the beginning, to the end in absolute detail. Now what? Well, you are omnipotent. You could create something like you, to, you know, keep you company. So you do it. But it's a miserable failure. The same problem exists: you know everything that could ever happen between yourself and the being the instant you create it. BOOOORRRRING! Existence is almost unbearable for you, there's nothing to exist for, no excitement or adventure or anything resembling fun.

Well, after a while (in god-time) you ask yourself, "Just how omnipotent am I? Could I create something that I don't have omniscience over? Something that could surprise me? If I did that, then I wouldn't really be omniscient anymore, because anything they interact with would then fall into the realm of non-omniscience. And because I won't know it completely, I won't be able to actually control what will happen to it, not completely anyway." So you go about and somehow create a thing that can actually surprise you. It coincidently functions something like a Jack-in-the-box. It amazes you! You crank the handle, and eventually the thing pops out! But get this: you don't know when it'll pop out!

Well, the Jack-in-the-box keeps you amused for quite a while, but eventually the surprise wears off. It's still the coolest thing you've ever created, but all it does is pop a little deal out whenever you work it. Then, after a while, it comes to you: "Wait a minute, what if I create a being like that thing over there, that has this special "unknowable" property. Then we could talk and stuff and I won't know what the darn thing'll say!" So you give the special property to the dude in the corner.

You ask it, "Hello, what would you like to be called?"
It responds: "Glglurndligblanq~dorflignugenheimer*fund."
You cannot stop laughing. First, is a ridiculous name; second, you didn't know that that would be the name the thing would choose. You know that if you had asked it before the change, it would have said, "Clord," but now it came straight out of left field.

Well, the conversation is quite bland, because the thing really hasn't done anything yet. It pretty much knows about the universe and stuff, but has no experiences to speak of. Nonetheless, you're absolutely enthralled. It doesn't say much, but you tell it about your problems and stuff and he reacts. But you never know how it'll react, or what it'll say in response to something until you actually do it. It's the most fun you've ever had. Sometime stuff it says even makes you laugh!

Eventually, you tell it everything. You can tell it to it again, and it'll respond a little differently, but you crave more. A plan is hatched for something bigger...

After a considerable period of god-time, you've finally got it all worked out: A world. Full of those beingy things. I mean, the universe is full of them, planets that is. There's one right over there that could work. They can do stuff there and you can watch and it'll be great. Of course, since you no longer fully know them, the entire planet, and pretty much anything they affect is now out of your complete control, because you don't know what the future has in store for them. That's the whole point.


Ten Thousand Years Later


HOLY SHIT!
YOUR SHIT!
"MY SHIT!"
you think.
Those... "people" are out of control. A lot of them are complete D-B's, if you know what I mean. They've taken over the entire planet, and, well, WOW! You never saw this coming. How could you? That was the whole point, wasn't it? Wasn't it? They're fricken out of control. It's wonderful and awful and beautiful and hideous and mundane and exciting and everything. You can't make them do anything! Technically, you can do stuff to them, but the consequences of your actions are completely unpredictable, and the outcome is never the way you want it to be, so you've pretty much given up on that. I mean that whole flood thing you tried a while back... now that was a mistake. There's this big cloud of non-omniscience floating through your universe, and now you've come to realize that within this cloud you are no longer really omnipotent.


One Trillion Years Later.

Gone, it's all gone. They've spread everywhere. The entire universe is affected by them. That little cloud has grown and grown, and now there is nothing that it has not consumed. You now have no real power. You're still omni-present, but the omniscient thing is a complete wash, and your omnipotence is a joke.
In this universe anyway...
Just how omnipotent are you...?

Rumors (Main Page) - About - Links - Archive