RAR! Nigh omnipotence!

[Kojiro]

Here's a RAR that's been floating around my head for a little while and I'm bored at work.

You are granted nighomnipotence- omnipotence with a few tiny catches that you cannot alter. The first catch is your omnipotence extends just a paltry 5 feet in all directions from your center of gravity. Within your bubble, you are supremely powerful. The second catch is that you cannot modify your own mind- in fact your mind now exists independent of your brain. Even complete annihilation of your physical self, should you allow it, would not end your consciousness (though you can choose to die if you wish). You can set up ongoing effects - for example while you cannot instill another language into your own head, you can convert all incoming speech so you hear whatever you like (and likewise for speaking). While you cannot simply instill your brain with knowledge, you can create said knowledge out of thin air in some form- like say on a piece of paper.

You can create fantastical devices/effects (such as a lightsaber) but unless they're based on sound scientific principles they will cease to function outside of your bubble.

Time travel is possible but only forwards and you cannot create logical impossibilities. And of course, you cannot duplicate the power in any way.

What do you do with said power? Do you set about wandering the halls of hospitals, healing the sick? Create amazing technology? Say bugger it and head off to explore the solar system? Restore endangered or extinct species? Attempt to clean up the environment?

Would anything change if you could affect an area 50ft around you?

Yes I know nigh omnipotence is blatant contradiction. Shhhh.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Bit by bit I create copies of the lost Doctor Who episodes. Then the books from the Library of Alexandria. Then, I transport myself to Vegas and win myself a fuckton of money by rigging every game in a way the casino's can't catch or prove.

[Kojiro]

Out of curiosity, what would you do with the money? I take it you're going to a low key approach in general?

[Tribble]

Would the effects that I make within my bubble be permanent, or only temporary? To use the hospital example above, would a person remain well if I healed them, or would they get sick again once they left my omnipotence bubble? Would it matter if I healed them in a way that was scientifically implausible?

[Darth Nostril]

^ This.

[Esquire]

If I'm interpreting this right, I note that 'scientifically plausible' is not the same thing as 'actually doable,' and create monomolecular-scale surgical devices powered by batteries and solar panels manufactured to literally infinitesimal tolerances and repaired by similarly-perfect companion machines. Having cured cancer, among other ailments, I retire to swim in my bathtub full of money proceed to design similar machines aimed at absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide (why not?), restoring biodiversity through error-free cloning, and eliminating industrial pollution before tackling . This done, I pull a book describing the perfect political and economic systems out of thin air and leave copies lying around; if they're actually perfect people ought to recognize that on their own merits, ontologically, and then just wander the Earth having a grand old time. If other worldwide problems manifest themselves, I suspect I can come up with some sort of machine which can fix them.

If I'm not interpreting this right, then just the wandering around the world plan, I guess. Possibly some comeuppance-providing for the world's assholishest assholes. Also, as a veteran D&D wizard, all manner of general and specific ongoing protective effects are steps 1 through ~450 in either case.

[Kojiro]

As long as the effect produced is not a violation of the laws of physics it will stick around. So you could magically regrow someone's arm and it would be permanent as arms existing in no way violates reality. Likewise purging of cancer, disease or any other debilitating condition. You could simply will someone mortally wounded to live (or more prevent them dying) no matter what state their body was in, but they'd die as soon as you stepped away.

Basically while you're there you can break any laws of reality you like- like conservation of energy- as long as the result doesn't continually violate them. By and large healing people would simply be restoring naturally occurring states.

If I'm interpreting this right, I note that 'scientifically plausible' is not the same thing as 'actually doable,'

Yes you can do this. Of course they must be able to operate without your present. You can certainly create nanobots if that's your desire.

This done, I pull a book describing the perfect political and economic systems out of thin air

This is somewhat harder, as any such system is going to be subjectively perfect at best (especially if said book contains say, zero reference to religion). While you could create this book, it would be your idea of perfect only.

[Chris Parr]

[youtube]7fTavlU7-rs[/youtube]

Yeah, I think this would be nigh omnipotent me.

[Chris Parr]

Yeah, I think this would be nigh omnipotent me.

[Chris Parr]

Dammit! I can't get the youtube button to work!

I'll just quote the guy.

"This is incredible—with these powers, I could be a superhero! I could fight crime, protect the innocent, work for world peace! But first—"


I fixed the tags. When you link the youtube, you have to remove the S from https to get it to work right. -- LadyTevar

[Darth Nostril]

Well then I spend time at Great Ormond Street Hospital healing all the kids there with cancer and leukemia, then head over to various hospitals housing the UKs veterans and regrow limbs and other body parts lost to IEDs.

[Esquire]

<snip>

Not nanobots, that's the beauty of it. 'Just' a literally-perfect medical scanner and semiautomated surgical device which will almost never break or run out of power, and a similarly-perfect device which either repairs the first or makes a new one given materials. Think a molecular-scale MRI with indefinitely high resolution, programming to interpret the above, and infinitesimal surgical roboarms to fix whatever it finds.

Subjective perfection is an interesting problem, because we (obviously) don't have any idea what my subjectively-perfect system would look like. It might very well turn out that any reasonably well-adjusted person's subjectively-perfect political system would be better than the massively imperfect ones we've got now; particularly if we make 'does not cause any significant (i.e. non-minor and non-financial) harm to people' one of the parameters. Who would object, for example, to a system which was actually and perfectly designed to provide everybody with everything listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Or rather, faced with such a system, would the self-serving or fanatical objections to progress we see now be able to hold water? All social issues would become ontological ones instead, basically. The postmodernists might wind up the chief opponents to the world they say they want.

Alternatively, can you actually make a perfect system out of imperfect people? Is that capacity inherent in logical perfection, or does the imperfection of the latter invalidate the perfection of the former?

[bilateralrope]

The bubble of power is centered on me. If I move, it moves.

So lets perform these steps
- Destroy my physical body.
- Teleport myself to the edge of the bubble.
- Wait for the bubble to recenter itself on me
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 for a while
- Reform my physical body

If I do that, how fast can I move ?


What I'd probably do is get a job at a hospital healing people until I thought of something better to do.

[Chris Parr]

Why destroy yourself? If the bubble moves with you, couldn't you move at superspeeed anyway?

[Esquire]

I suppose it would be a way around the potential effects of superspeed on the surrounding territory, or - since mind is now explicitly separate from brain and therefore possibly not subject to the physical speed limitations of human thought - a way to effectively pause time; that's a little beyond my competence, though, and wouldn't be necessary since we can violate conservation of energy inside our bubble anyway.

[Kojiro]

Alternatively, can you actually make a perfect system out of imperfect people? Is that capacity inherent in logical perfection, or does the imperfection of the latter invalidate the perfection of the former?

I did originally have some caveats in there about how the power was limited in it's creativity. Specifically it could do anything that you could draw influence from, so duplication or repair wasn't a problem. You could create a conventional laptop or heal the sick. But as it was more or less following your commands, it was sort of 'blind'. Any and all knowledge was one 'step' away, so to speak. So you could create a piece of paper out of thin air, with the location of Blackbeard's gold on it (if such a thing exists) but you couldn't create a new kind of computer directly using the power, unless you yourself could explicitly know how you wanted something done. Nothing would stop you from, say, simply increasing the screen resolution or shrinking the architecture but creating something new would be beyond it. In that way the micro machines are out, unless you actually know how to build said machines. But as I said, that seemed too inconsistent.

Likewise you couldn't simply create a movie or book without giving it some idea what you wanted. At least that was one idea I had but it seemed a little too inconsistent so I dropped it. But I imagine when creating a perfect system it's rather tricky as even knowing how doesn't grant the ability to get to it. We should all be off fossil fuels but hey, that's just not the way it is, if you catch my meaning. Of course if we're going with the 'create perfect book' then we can also create the perfect road map to get there.

Re: super speed- you can simply move at any speed you desire. It would certainly be wise do disassociate yourself (intangibility or something) from the world if you do though. Flying from London to NY at light speed, even with just the mass of a person, is going to cause chaos to say the least. You'd be limited to pre selected jumps (4,000km, that way, this curvature etc) though as you'd lack the mental speed to adjust in flight at high velocities.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

What do you do with said power? Do you set about wandering the halls of hospitals, healing the sick? Create amazing technology? Say bugger it and head off to explore the solar system? Restore endangered or extinct species? Attempt to clean up the environment?

Would anything change if you could affect an area 50ft around you?

I'd do what I can in terms of helping people out, but not blatantly so; otherwise, I'd be doing far more harm than good by making people dependent on my abilities rather than making all the wrong things good on their own, though I'd do my level best to nudge others to do that, and to work together.

And, I might make me a spaceship, and go poking around a bit in Zaune's Fenspace. Just because he makes it sound like a pretty interesting place.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fTavlU7-rs[/youtube]

Yeah, I think this would be nigh omnipotent me.

Remove the "s" from "https:" and the video posts just fine.

Except, I think that bit's broken at the moment.

[Jub]

I'd probably start by creating a mind-machine interface that can instantly and perfectly transmit any amount of knowledge directly to my brain which should then modify my mind. Then I'd create a database of all human knowledge past and present. Step three would be downloading that knowledge into my brain. This should be in line with the can create knowledge on a piece of paper aspect while bypassing the mind modification restriction. In this same vein, I could also create a behavior modifying machine to change those aspects of myself.

Or does that break the rules?

[Kojiro]

I think it doesn't technically break the rules, but certainly the spirit of them.

Ideally the concept is meant to offer you the ability to do anything but you have to do it. You can't just snap your fingers and clean the oceans, you'd have to get out there and do it. Likewise you're not supposed to be able to change who you are, but my rules aren't the best. It's supposed to be a sort of 'hands on' omnipotence that requires your direct presence. That said, there's no caveat preventing you from downloading information into others though it's hard to say what effect such a knowledge dump would have.

What would happen to someone if you just dumped the entirety of human knowledge into their brains as if they'd spend lifetimes learning it?

[bilateralrope]

Why destroy yourself? If the bubble moves with you, couldn't you move at superspeeed anyway?

Why drag a body around when that means having to worry about air displacement and possibly relativistic effects ?

I'd do what I can in terms of helping people out, but not blatantly so; otherwise, I'd be doing far more harm than good by making people dependent on my abilities rather than making all the wrong things good on their own, though I'd do my level best to nudge others to do that, and to work together.

I think it would be better for humanity to say "I can do these things. I don't know how I can do them" then cooperate with any scientists wanting to study my abilities. They might be able to figure out how they work.

Also, being open with my abilities and using them for profit gives me money which I can use to have influence outside my area of effect.

[Chris Parr]

Why destroy yourself? If the bubble moves with you, couldn't you move at superspeeed anyway?

Why drag a body around when that means having to worry about air displacement and possibly relativistic effects ?

But—couldn't you just instantly repair whatever damage your speed causes behind you as you go?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I think it would be better for humanity to say "I can do these things. I don't know how I can do them" then cooperate with any scientists wanting to study my abilities. They might be able to figure out how they work.

I didn't think of that, but I should have.

Also, being open with my abilities and using them for profit gives me money which I can use to have influence outside my area of effect.

What would an omnipotent being want with money, when he can create it, and it would be permanent(not scientifically implausible)? Hell, he could create most of the things/services one would need money for(food, car repair, possibly a full tank of gas).

And, if said ominpotence allows, one could teleport into the IT center of one's bank and use his mojo on the servers to put more money into his account, for the things he would need money for.

[Kojiro]

Physical items should be of trivial influence to you with this power, historical or unique items notwithstanding (though you could, down to the atoms, duplicate them). Money would still be useful in that you could essentially project influence with it.

Personally I'd like to set up a Luna colony then assist with the heavy lifting of people to get up there.

[Zixinus]

Would the powers include telepathy? If so, how so? Can I alter people's thoughts? Can I radically alter people's minds altogether? Could I help the mentally ill?

Because then I'd go out and learn about people more. Night omnipotence would mean that I would not have to fear for my life or be even seen if I don't want to be. Maybe discreetly help them out if they really need it and it wouldn't be unreasonable. Same thing with the world on a wider scale. With tremendous power it is very, very easy to do tremendous harm trough carelessness. The power is incredible but I am not.
Also, leak information about various politicians shamelessly embezzling private funds.

Also:
- Can I change my body? Could I shape-shift to be whatever I want?
- Can I radically alter another body, like making them young and healthy again?
- Are we stable immortals? Will our mind, with reasonable measures to include mental health, be not affected negatively by age?
- I take it that our bubble has instant centering? So if I were to speed myself up to, say, 100 km/h and not let the acceleration, speed and incoming objects kill me then I could fly in the air?