Mephistopheles?

[Crabapple]

I would neither sell my soul, nor anyone else's (you'd be damned for that). People without a soul smell funny.

[FemMecha]

So basically, the idea of selling one's soul is to give up freedom for knowledge? I wouldn't. Whatever is true about the universe stays that way whether I understand it or not. If I give up my freedom it is gone. If I give up awareness of truth, the awareness may be gone, but the truth remains. Knowledge is a luxury, freedom a necessity imo.

[SolitaryWalker]

So basically, the idea of selling one's soul is to give up freedom for knowledge? I wouldn't. Whatever is true about the universe stays that way whether I understand it or not. If I give up my freedom it is gone. If I give up awareness of truth, the awareness may be gone, but the truth remains. Knowledge is a luxury, freedom a necessity imo.

What if you thought that with this knowledge you could find a way to get your freedom back? After all, Mephistopheles is not omniscient, but you are, so you would probably outwit him.

[Littlelostnf]

What if you thought that with this knowledge you could find a way to get your freedom back? After all, Mephistopheles is not omniscient, but you are, so you would probably outwit him.

So in other words you're asking if we'd like to be God?

Mephistopheles not omniscient
God - omniscient - Having all world's knowledge
Mephistopheles not truly able to offer all knowledge...

Wait...is this a trick question?

[SolitaryWalker]

So in other words you're asking if we'd like to be God?

Mephistopheles not omniscient
God - omniscient - Having all world's knowledge
Mephistopheles not truly able to offer all knowledge...

Wait...is this a trick question?

You dont know if God exists, you dont know if you really believe in this Mephistopheles either... You just meet some phantom who tells you that you have a soul that you can sell to him in exchange for omniscience... take it or leave it..

[Littlelostnf]

You dont know if God exists, you dont know if you really believe in this Mephistopheles either... You just meet some phantom who tells you that you have a soul that you can sell to him in exchange for omniscience... take it or leave it..

Ok then. No I leave it.

[Crabapple]

What would one do with all that knowledge anyway? I'd like to dispense justice, and ensure peace and harmony. If I had ultimate knowledge, I'd know how to to it....Tempting.

[RaptorWizard]

RaptorWizard's responce to SolitaryWalker's Mephistopheles? thread:

If we go back to the Garden of Eden story, God commanded Adam and Eve not to partake of the Fruit of Knowledge. They ate of the fruit despite the warning, and then their eyes were opened. The cost however is that they would ultimately perish, and that to postpone this, they would have to work to survive and suffer against pitiless elements. The implications of this are very difficult to see clearly, but I will speculate that there could be some higher power that wants life, at least at this level of existence, to be obedient and toiling slaves to the natural order, or perhaps it could also be challenging life to become stronger on a journey through the eons, even if the means of its accomplishment leads to suffering. In each of these instances, knowledge would aid us in our progressive development to overcome these systems, since it could give us the power we need to rise above our lowly stations, but this resistance could also bounce back upon us with greater adversity. I know not how long we shall have to endure this pain, whether it will last for 1 lifetime on earth, or if we will continue to face it for many lives to come, but the question of how to transcend this could be discovered in the finality and annihilation of all things physical. This world may be corrupted beyond repair, so to heal it, ruin may have to be unleashed upon it, for by destroying the old world, new worlds could be spawned by the will of life, worlds with ideal designs. In this way the problem of evil potentially could be ended. I make no unalterable claim that this is the direction life needs to take in the eons to come, or that such a momentous feat is even achievable, though it remains clear that we are in desperate need of a global transformation that life creates.

[Aesthete]

Sell my soul for knowledge of the universe? Hmm...it's a very vague question. I think if I was to gain knowledge, I would be learning more about my soul than actually selling it. The OT story of Adam and Eve losing their place in Eden and being susceptible to (Earthly) death because of gaining knowledge might seem like such a problem at first, but in fact, their soul was sold to ignorant, material existence before gaining knowledge.

But, if you want to know if I would give up eternal life to gain knowledge of material existence, my answer would be No: once gaining knowledge of the whole of the Universe, I would realize that I should have known better.