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Old 2010-04-14, 06:39   Link #143
Vallen Chaos Valiant
Logician and Romantic
 
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ithekro View Post
As for the Data Entity being omniscient....if they were...why would they need observers in the first place? This would indicate they are not omniscient. They are aliens of some sort. Highly advanced, but they are short of being omniscient. That might be part of what they are after though that is hard to confirm. Partly because Yuki doesn't say that and she says that verbal comunications with Kyon might result in errors in the data being given to Kyon. Also his limited understanding of the concepts limits us since he's the one giving us the story.
The Data Entity is technically omniscient. But because they have a completely different physical existence in relation to humans, they don't understand what they see even if they observe.

Yuki's role is essentially the translator; a being who is composed of both data and a physical body.

To put this in spoiler context related to future books...
Spoiler for future books:


Another example I can give is from the Discworld novel series. The major villains in that world, the Auditors, can see absolutely everything. But they can't read human minds, because all they could see is the individual electrons jumping around the brain cells.

Seeing is different from understanding.
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