God and "Free Will"

[Polgara]

Well, the question for me would then be as to whether an omniscient being, God, could give up its omniscience. It would, as I see it, have to do this in order to not know what humans would do in advance of them doing it. Can they really have free will if God knows all their moves in advance? They could believe they had it, but no more.

I don't think you could bestow omniscience, as it must be like a higher-order thought process raised to the ultimate level. Of course there are inevitably conceptual problems with discussing rules that apply to things that very likely anyway don't exist!

Nick

Why does god not have to not know what humans would do in advance of their doing it?

Man could have free will if God does not interfere with it.

 

[Hokulele]

The issue of free will is quite seperate from the moral question. It is possible to concieve of free actions in a universe in which morality did not apply.

Of course. I was replying to ACS' argument that free will and morality are irrevocably entwined.

OTOH, it doesn't seem possible to have morality as being meaningful in a wholly deterministic or random universe. Hence free will comes first.

Why not? If society determines an action is moral or immoral (say, women running around topless) and communicates this policy clearly to all members of the community, the awareness of the social constraint (or encouragement) of female toplessness will be simply another link in the causal chain. Further back in the chain, there will be more links that cause the societal restriction (or encouragement) in the first place.

Deterministic forces causing unpredictable behavior aren't an issue, as can be seen when looking at the mathematics behind Chaos Theory.

We know that already. We have limits to what we can do. We can't decide to fly, or see through walls.

Which is why I restricted the issue to something that technically should be feasible for any person (judging between "good" and "bad" actions). Some people are able to do this, and it affects their choices, some are not, and it affects their choices. Where then is free will in the religious sense?

The question is not whether we are able to choose to do anything we want. The question is whether we are able to make any choice.

Sure we are. It is just that the choices we make are determined by what has happened up until that point in time.

Without free will, there cannot be any question of judging actions.

Of course there can. A good computer programmer will aways set up an error-checking system to make sure the information entered by the user is "good" before proceeding. On the user's end, there may be hundreds of reasons why they may enter "bad" information, none of which require free will on the part of the user (their finger slipped and hit the wrong key, the instructions were unclear, their cat got loose and started racing across the keyboard, etc.).

 

[Nick227]

Man could have free will if God does not interfere with it.

Well, anyway, I'm not aware of anything that has free will. Seems to me the belief in free will means you just don't think about things like free will very much.

Even if you're some hardass "soul"-believer or rabid homuculus-worshiping dualist, you're going to have to be very extreme to not believe that either of these entities have no internal process. There's no known precedent in our universe for such a thing.

Free will is a fantasy. God is a fantasy.

Nick

 

[Legend]

I really don't see what is so fantastical about free will.

Every time I give what you know is the general definition for free will, everyone gets asking: "what does that mean", when they know what I mean. It's so stereotypically skeptical, and I hate having a stereotype like that placed onto me.

This isn't an insult to you Nick227, I just would like to know why you feel it's fantastical.

This is interesting.

Cheers,
Alex

 

[Legend]

If the god under discussion is the tri-omni god, then he never guesses. He knows. But if god knows all, even the future, wouldn't that mean god himself doesn't have free will?

This idea has interested me for quite a while. I remember when I thought of it.

I'm starting to see the fantasy of free will, I guess.

Alex.

 

[bruto]

Well, the question for me would then be as to whether an omniscient being, God, could give up its omniscience. It would, as I see it, have to do this in order to not know what humans would do in advance of them doing it. Can they really have free will if God knows all their moves in advance? They could believe they had it, but no more.

I don't think you could bestow omniscience, as it must be like a higher-order thought process raised to the ultimate level. Of course there are inevitably conceptual problems with discussing rules that apply to things that very likely anyway don't exist!

Nick

Well, you could play around a little more with what it means to be omniscient and also omnipotent, and why you seem to see the concept of "omni" as being so substantially different between the two.

An omnipotent being can do everything or anything, but this does not mean that he does all he can all the time. If he did, everything possible would happen all at once, and the universe would cease to work at all.

If you're omniscient you are at least able to know everything, but must you? If you're omnipotent, the word "must" is never applicable. Thus, an omniscient and omnipotent God could easily choose not to exercise his power of omniscience to short-circuit our free will, could he not? Just as with his omnipotence, he chooses what to do and when. Why should the rule for omniscience be any different? The fact that he receives all our mail doesn't mean he has to read it all. If our free will is more important to him than knowing what we'll do every moment, then why would he not enable it? It's his game, his rules.

Of course this is all a bit like discussing the technicalities of hyperspace drives or the battery life of light sabers, but I don't see any real reason why, if your logic allows God and his usual list of attributes at all, it should disallow free will.

 

[rocketdodger]

Why does god not have to not know what humans would do in advance of their doing it?

Man could have free will if God does not interfere with it.

Look, it is quit simple.

1) God knows you will choose option A instead of option B at some point in your life.
2) God can't be wrong.
3) Therefore you can't choose option B -- you will choose option A.
4) Therefore you have no free will with respect to choosing option A or B. If the choice was free then you would be able to choose B.

Get it?

 

[Egg]

But if Peter had free will he might decide not to sin, whether or not he sees the message. And then the message would have been wrong.

Peter might decide not to sin, but then the message would have been different.

But if you are saying God observed Peter's free action then inserted the message in earlier, why could he not observe Peter's free action and then hand it to Peter?

He could. I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here.

But here is the point. How does God know what my choices would be? Is it because as an eternal timeless being he can see all events simultaneously?

Or is it because he knows exactly what I would do in any given circumstances?

It was suggested earlier that in a universe with free will or anything random the future cannot be logically known therefore is not covered by "omniscience", in which case any future predictions would be based on the second idea.

I'm not convinced that knowing what you would do in any given circumstance would be compatible with the notion of free will if that was how God knew the future. For perfect predictions in that case, it would seem to me that would suggest our actions are entirely determined.

I would lean towards God being eternal as an argument that allows free will to be compatible with omniscience including seeing the future. Whether that has to mean God is timeless or just relatively timeless to our dimension I don't think would make a difference to the argument except in making the timelessness easier to comprehend, so I don't think it would matter if God saw all events simultaneously or had the ability to view our time-line at any point He chose to.

 

[Hokulele]

Peter might decide not to sin, but then the message would have been different.
He could. I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here.

It was suggested earlier that in a universe with free will or anything random the future cannot be logically known therefore is not covered by "omniscience", in which case any future predictions would be based on the second idea.

I'm not convinced that knowing what you would do in any given circumstance would be compatible with the notion of free will if that was how God knew the future. For perfect predictions in that case, it would seem to me that would suggest our actions are entirely determined.

I would lean towards God being eternal as an argument that allows free will to be compatible with omniscience including seeing the future. Whether that has to mean God is timeless or just relatively timeless to our dimension I don't think would make a difference to the argument except in making the timelessness easier to comprehend, so I don't think it would matter if God saw all events simultaneously or had the ability to view our time-line at any point He chose to.

Fairly random, related question. Would a timeless being understand time as we know it? Would entropy and the "arrow of time" have any meaning? Are actions really relevant to such a being, given that action is itself a time-dependent concept?

 

[Egg]

Look, it is quit simple.

1) God knows you will choose option A instead of option B at some point in your life.
2) God can't be wrong.
3) Therefore you can't choose option B -- you will choose option A.
4) Therefore you have no free will with respect to choosing option A or B. If the choice was free then you would be able to choose B.

Get it?

If God knows you will choose option A instead of option B, then it must be possible to choose B, otherwise you're not choosing A you're just doing A and B was never an option.

 

[Egg]

Fairly random, related question. Would a timeless being understand time as we know it? Would entropy and the "arrow of time" have any meaning? Are actions really relevant to such a being, given that action is itself a time-dependent concept?

It depends what timeless means. If we go along with the idea of time as another dimension then I'd imagine the difference to be along the lines of how a 3D being could see 2D in totality and act within it, while a 2D being could make models and approximations of 3D but be incapable of actually seeing it or interacting in anything but the 2 dimensions.

Another possibility is of a being existing in a different time-line, therefore being relatively timeless to our time-line. We could use the example of watching a simulated world on your PC and being able to view that world at any given point on that world's time-line using sliders or forward/backward buttons. You would be outside of the simulated world's time-line, but could still potentially interact with it. From the point of view of a being in that simulated world, you would be essentially timeless.

 

[Nick227]

I really don't see what is so fantastical about free will.

Every time I give what you know is the general definition for free will, everyone gets asking: "what does that mean", when they know what I mean. It's so stereotypically skeptical, and I hate having a stereotype like that placed onto me.

This isn't an insult to you Nick227, I just would like to know why you feel it's fantastical.

This is interesting.

Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex,

I consider it fantastical because to me the materialist perspective, which I'm into these days, indicates that all our thoughts and actions are the result of pre-existing processes, including those processes which cause things like "experience" and "selfhood."

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Well, you could play around a little more with what it means to be omniscient and also omnipotent, and why you seem to see the concept of "omni" as being so substantially different between the two.

An omnipotent being can do everything or anything, but this does not mean that he does all he can all the time. If he did, everything possible would happen all at once, and the universe would cease to work at all.

If you're omniscient you are at least able to know everything, but must you? If you're omnipotent, the word "must" is never applicable. Thus, an omniscient and omnipotent God could easily choose not to exercise his power of omniscience to short-circuit our free will, could he not? Just as with his omnipotence, he chooses what to do and when. Why should the rule for omniscience be any different? The fact that he receives all our mail doesn't mean he has to read it all. If our free will is more important to him than knowing what we'll do every moment, then why would he not enable it? It's his game, his rules.

Of course this is all a bit like discussing the technicalities of hyperspace drives or the battery life of light sabers, but I don't see any real reason why, if your logic allows God and his usual list of attributes at all, it should disallow free will.

Well, bearing in mind that we're discussing a hypothetical being that imo most certainly does not exist, I would say that God is bound by determinist principles the same as everything else. All of God's thoughts and the decisions made whether or not to act on those thoughts would be pre-determined, so he would be powerless to impart free will, since even he does not experience it. I suppose he could decide to descend in awareness, and manifest himself as a limited being believing itself to have free will erroneously.

Nick

 

[Hokulele]

Both of these are interesting points, but I have slight quibbles with each.

It depends what timeless means. If we go along with the idea of time as another dimension then I'd imagine the difference to be along the lines of how a 3D being could see 2D in totality and act within it, while a 2D being could make models and approximations of 3D but be incapable of actually seeing it or interacting in anything but the 2 dimensions.

A 3D being can observe a 2D world, but can it actually fully appreciate a 2D lifestyle? (Yes, I have read Flatland. I currently own a copy.)

Another possibility is of a being existing in a different time-line, therefore being relatively timeless to our time-line. We could use the example of watching a simulated world on your PC and being able to view that world at any given point on that world's time-line using sliders or forward/backward buttons. You would be outside of the simulated world's time-line, but could still potentially interact with it. From the point of view of a being in that simulated world, you would be essentially timeless.

But in that case, does action and free will apply? Rewinding and fast-forwarding require a deterministic environment, or else the story could be different each time.

ETA: In addition, the very notion of rewind and fast-forward are themselves time dependent.

 

[bruto]

Well, bearing in mind that we're discussing a hypothetical being that imo most certainly does not exist, I would say that God is bound by determinist principles the same as everything else. All of God's thoughts and the decisions made whether or not to act on those thoughts would be pre-determined, so he would be powerless to impart free will, since even he does not experience it. I suppose he could decide to descend in awareness, and manifest himself as a limited being believing itself to have free will erroneously.

Nick

I get what you're saying, but as you argue it, the kind of god usually meant by 'God" is impossible at the outset. Now of course that's one of the reasons I have more than a little difficulty believing such a god can exist at all, but I think it's cheating in this sort of discussion to bring those rules in retroactively, so to speak. If you start with the impossibility of God, you can't discuss his attributes using the same criteria you used to disqualify him in the first place. But IF there's a God, then that God pretty much has to be seen as transcending determinism, whether you find that palatable or not.

 

[Nick227]

I get what you're saying, but as you argue it, the kind of god usually meant by 'God" is impossible at the outset. Now of course that's one of the reasons I have more than a little difficulty believing such a god can exist at all, but I think it's cheating in this sort of discussion to bring those rules in retroactively, so to speak. If you start with the impossibility of God, you can't discuss his attributes using the same criteria you used to disqualify him in the first place.

Well, I mention my own views at the beginning just to make it clear that we are discussing hypothetical entities. My own experience is that neither "God" nor "free will" survive even a relatively low level of rational scrutinisation. So for me it is not so much to pre-judge the issue and disqualify God but to point out that simple examination indicates that God-belief is nonsensical anyway.

It's rather like we're discussing the Tooth Fairy and debating whether or not it can be conclusively be demonstrated to show up before or after midnight.

But IF there's a God, then that God pretty much has to be seen as transcending determinism, whether you find that palatable or not.

You can say this, but to me this is part of the fantasy. Can you give me any incidence where determinism is transcended? This is the whole thing with God and free will. These concepts are for people who simply don't want to examine anything too closely. If the mind has no experience whatsoever of a situation, it cannot model it. All it can do is refuse to look too closely and drift into fantasy.

Nick

 

[Polgara]

Well, anyway, I'm not aware of anything that has free will. Seems to me the belief in free will means you just don't think about things like free will very much.

Even if you're some hardass "soul"-believer or rabid homuculus-worshiping dualist, you're going to have to be very extreme to not believe that either of these entities have no internal process. There's no known precedent in our universe for such a thing.

Free will is a fantasy. God is a fantasy.

Nick

To quote David Bowie, as I often do on here: Let's dance.

Free Will:
power of independent action and choice: the ability to act or make choices as a free and autonomous being and not solely as a result of compulsion or predestination
of your own free will without being forced by somebody or something else
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861690787/free_will.html

Fantasy:
1. imaginative power: the creative power of the imagination
2. mental image or dream: an image or dream created by the imagination
3. impractical idea: an unrealistic and impractical idea
She has this fantasy that someday she'll write a novel.
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861610484/fantasy.html

God:
1. supernatural being: one of a group of supernatural male beings in some religions, each of which is worshiped as the personification or controller of some aspect of the universe
Thor, the Norse god of thunder
2. figure or image: a representation of a god, used as an object of worship
the little bronze god standing in a niche above the altar
3. something that dominates: something that is so important that it takes over somebody's life ( informal )
worshiping the false god of fame
4. somebody admired: a man who is widely admired or imitated ( informal )
He was one of the rock music gods of the early Seventies.
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/god.html

Free Will: I've had a compulsion for chemicals that create a feeling of antispeed for me. The primary being cigarettes. I have quit smoking. I have free will.

God: I have personified and worshipped something as my controller. In my mind it is a fantasy that can become a reality. We'll stick with cigarettes as an example. If I was feeling wound up, I believed the chemical reaction from the cigarette calmed me down. That became a reality because I created a need for the chemical from a false conception that the chemical would fix the initial problem.

Fantasy: An established fact is that we have the ability to create. That is real. We also have the ability to be impractical and unrealistic.

(Where is my halo when I need it.

Free will exists, even though it can be taken away.

A god can exist, to date, only if we will it by using creativity. (Worshipping a god is optional, and a separate debate.)

Fantasy exists because we have the ability to create. What we create can be something practical and realisitic, or not.

 

[Nick227]

To quote David Bowie, as I often do on here: Let's dance.

Free Will:
power of independent action and choice: the ability to act or make choices as a free and autonomous being and not solely as a result of compulsion or predestination
of your own free will without being forced by somebody or something else
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861690787/free_will.html

You can take the position that "free will" means that no one else is blocking your expression. Fair enough.

But, there is also a deeper level on which one may examine the term "free will." Personally, I figure that it's on this level that this thread has been more relating. That is, if you examine the processes which come to make up our subjective experience of free will from a materialist perspective you find that they must all be deterministic. Ergo the conclusion, free will itself is illusory.

Nick

 

[Polgara]

Toothfairy Gods, exists only in the fantasy defined as our creative abilities being exercised in an unrealistic and impractical way. It's attempting to manifest an idea, a conception, into something that is physical. It's like a math formula that we are trying to figure out, but we have a missing component to the equation so we just arbitrarily plug in (something) to fill that missing component to force an answer to match an equation.

Problem is either the answer or the equation will have to be false if we plug in a guessed number to fill the missing component.

Look at 1 + x = 3.

We don't know what x is but we know that we want to get the equation to equal the answer three. We can plug in the real number that will make the answer equal 3. 1 + 2 = 3.

We can take the time to learn math. If we learn math, we learn that 2 is the missing component.

Or, we can just toss a number we guess at, and see if it works. 1 + 4 does not = 3...

 

[Polgara]

You can take the position that "free will" means that no one else is blocking your expression. Fair enough.

But, there is also a deeper level on which one may examine the term "free will." Personally, I figure that it's on this level that this thread has been more relating. That is, if you examine the processes which come to make up our subjective experience of free will from a materialist perspective you find that they must all be deterministic. Ergo the conclusion, free will itself is illusory.

Nick

Let's qualify here to better communicate.

When you say 'also a deeper level' are you referring to regression? I mean this in terms of digging around and around, deeper and deeper into self referencing? In order to examine the term? (Visions of Doug Hofstadter come to my mind.

I am not locked in that it is determinisitic. We have the ability to create. We have the ability to create patches, extensions that result in new equations and new results that allow us to operate in many different directions.

We have the capacity to learn things outside of ourselves. Other people's views, experiences, languages, abstract impressions....

Keep dancing. I'd like to see where this leads.