Free will and omniscience

[MarkCorrigan]

It's only omniscient if it actually exists.

If the outcome of my decision is unaffected by whether or not a prescient/omniscient entity I am unaware of does or does not exist, then in what way is my free will abrogated if it happens to exist?

By it's very existence.

Again, what you believe doesn't matter a fig, nor does what you think of the situation. You may believe that you are choosing X over not X, but the existence of a 100% omniscient being that knows in advance that you will pick X means that you cannot ever pick not X. If you cannot, at all, ever pick not X then you don't actually have a choice.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

I think the key in the OP might be the word 'atemporal'

If I know before you make a decision what it will be then I think you can argue that free will is an illusion

If I travel in time to after you made the decision, observe the outcome then travel back in time to where I was originally with the knowledge of what you choose, can you still say your choice wasn't free?

If you allow a being not constrained by time then it seems pretty easy enough for it to have prescience at least if not omniscience.

 

[pakeha]

^
Muad'Dib?

 

[arthwollipot]

Why is free will valued?

Free will is valued because it is the only way to make sense of an ever-loving God that also condemns people to an eternity of torture.

 

[nvidiot]

It makes it convenient when you want to condemn someone for not following your god, but want a psychological out to stop realising how nasty such concepts as eternal damnation is.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

there's no reason to believe it

Actually reading the OP again, this might actually be the key to the whole shebang.

 

[Brian-M]

Still, I disagree, and point to myself. Pretty sure that I put up a working, if minimalistic definition of what I count as Free Will.

You're right. I may as well make a list.
Definitions of free will (so far)...

Aridas: Freedom to influence the outcome.
Halfcentaur: Freedom from bias/coercion.^*AvalonXQ: Lack of constraint on the ability to make a decision.
Brian-M: Freedom from interference with the internal decision making process.

^* Or at least that's what I assume is implied from post #16.

Four different people, four different definitions. No wonder that these kind of discussions always end up going in circles and never get anywhere. Everybody is using the same words to mean something slightly different.

You may believe that you are choosing X over not X, but the existence of a 100% omniscient being that knows in advance that you will pick X means that you cannot ever pick not X. If you cannot, at all, ever pick not X then you don't actually have a choice.

The decision whether to choose X over not X is the result of the internal processes of the mind, the result being determined by the pre-existing mental state and the nature of the decision to be made. You could just as easily make either choice either depending on your pre-existing mental state.

Whether or not an omniscient being exists has no effect on the mental processes involved in the decision making process, so free will (as I define it) is not affected.

But how do you define free will?

About free will, as far as I'm aware there are three positions that a person can take...

1. It's some kind of magical property outside the realm of physics.
2. It's a non-deterministic physical process.
3. It's a deterministic physical process.

(But I'm sure there's lots of variations on each of these.)

If your position is #1, then it's impossible to meaningfully discuss the subject of free will. If your position is #2, then it's logically impossible for a prescient omniscient being to exist (although it might be possible for a non-prescient omniscient being to exist, but that kind of omniscient being would be irrelevant to a discussion of free will) . If your position is #3, then the existence of a prescient omniscient being is no threat to your free will.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

A truly omniscient being violates free will because if the outcome is pre-determined there is no choice made. If the outcome is not determined, then the being cannot be truly omniscient.

That's why free will can't mesh with the biblical god. If he already knows I will do X, I cannot do not X. It would violate the omniscience of the being by virtue of having proven it wrong. Mental processes don't matter. It's like rolling a die, only with an omniscient being the die is loaded and can only show one result- that which the being knows will occur.

If you could see the future and were totally unable to be wrong about what you saw, you couldn't change it, because you've seen it. God has apparently seen our futures, so there is absolutely nothing we can do. We may think we're making choices, but our choices cannot stray from the very specific path that god has seen for us, and therefore there is no choice at all.

 

[sadhatter]

The problem with this logic is, it would work fine if the christian god just stumbled into an already made universe, and happened to know everything. That would make sense, but the fact that he created everything means he set everything up in the manner that he wanted.

Why is it christians always seem to try and nerf the abilities of their god to make a point? It's like a bad anime that has to add some silly maguffin to make an overpowered character more interesting ( Dragonball is a great example. ) , except the bible jumped the shark pretty much 5 pages in, as opposed to after a great length of time.

 

[AvalonXQ]

A truly omniscient being violates free will because if the outcome is pre-determined there is no choice made.

Again, I disagree.

Somebody up there had an excellent analogy -- by assertions you've been given, a time traveller popping in from the future to observe (and do nothing) would suddenly change a set of actions from having free will to not having free will. I just don't buy it.

What precisely is the change that a being that in no way influences the decision itself has on the free will of the event simply by knowing its outcome?

 

[Brian-M]

A truly omniscient being violates free will because if the outcome is pre-determined there is no choice made.

But the choice is being made inside the agent's head. How does having an external entity know in advance in any way affect this process?

How can any decision be an act of free will if nobody knows what that decision will be in advance, when the exact same decision would not be an act of free will if, unknown to everybody, some omniscient entity happened to know in advance what that decision would be?

Unless you can show a causal link between the omniscient entity's foreknowledge of the agent's decision and the process of the agent making that decision, you either have to concede that the entity's foreknowledge of the decision has no bearing on the free will behind that decision, or that free will (as you conceive of it) does not exist.

ETA: Because even if nobody knows what the outcome will be, that doesn't necessarily make the outcome any less "determined" than if someone did. For it to even be possible for an omniscient entity to know in advance would make it equally predetermined regardless of whether or not such an entity existed.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

But the choice is being made inside the agent's head. How does having an external entity know in advance in any way affect this process?

You could turn that on its head though and say if I genuinely have a free choice then how could an external entity know in advance?

 

[Brian-M]

You could turn that on its head though and say if I genuinely have a free choice then how could an external entity know in advance?

If you conceive of free will as being a partially non-deterministic process (that is, the decision is influenced by true randomness), then yes, it would be logically impossible for an omniscient entity to exist in a universe where free will is possible.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

But the choice is being made inside the agent's head. How does having an external entity know in advance in any way affect this process?

How can any decision be an act of free will if nobody knows what that decision will be in advance, when the exact same decision would not be an act of free will if, unknown to everybody, some omniscient entity happened to know in advance what that decision would be?

Unless you can show a causal link between the omniscient entity's foreknowledge of the agent's decision and the process of the agent making that decision, you either have to concede that the entity's foreknowledge of the decision has no bearing on the free will behind that decision, or that free will (as you conceive of it) does not exist.

ETA: Because even if nobody knows what the outcome will be, that doesn't necessarily make the outcome any less "determined" than if someone did. For it to even be possible for an omniscient entity to know in advance would make it equally predetermined regardless of whether or not such an entity existed.

Without genuine choice, there can be no free will.

If the entity cannot be wrong, there is no choice.

There may be the illusion of choice, the person may make the choice themselves without knowing it's pre-determined, but there can be no variation from the already known outcome.

If god knows I'm going to have a pizza tonight, I might well chose in my own mind to have a pizza, certainly, but the choice isn't really viable, because I can't have anything else.

For free will to exist, rather than the illusion of free will, any possible outcome must be viable. Even in a limited choice scenario, X or Y, for there to actually be a choice both options must be available for me to choose. I might think to myself that I want X and come to the decision to have X all by myself, but if god knows I will have X then there is no real choice involved.

To put it another way, if god knows I will have a pizza tonight, then no matter how in depth my own personal "choice" is, I could not possibly have chosen anything else. If all other options are not actually possible, then it isn't any more a choice than if I was given a trick loaded die. Sure, there's 6 numbers on the die, but it's only ever going to come up with a 1.

 

[joobz]

What precisely is the change that a being that in no way influences the decision itself has on the free will of the event simply by knowing its outcome?

If you truly know the outcome, than the future is written as much has history has been written. Then all participants in life are simply acting out the script. Their ignorance of that script doesn't change that.

 

[Halfcentaur]

.
Halfcentaur: Freedom from bias/coercion.^*
Four different people, four different definitions. No wonder that these kind of discussions always end up going in circles and never get anywhere. Everybody is using the same words to mean something slightly different.

That's not actually what I would call freewill, it just seems to be the major definition I encounter from theists when they bring it up in regards to their religion and why it's supposed to be something we value.

"If you did not have free will you would just be a robot" As if not being a robot justifies eternal consequence.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

If you truly know the outcome, than the future is written as much has history has been written. Then all participants in life are simply acting out the script. Their ignorance of that script doesn't change that.

Exactly!

If there is a determined outcome, there can be no choice. There is the illusion of choice certainly, and our minds may think they are making a decision, but if the result of the decision is already known, there is one fixed outcome. If there is one fixed outcome, all possible choices that do not lead to that outcome are not real choices at all, because they are impossible.

 

[Halfcentaur]

When it comes to what Avalon is saying in this thread's OP, I would think a good analogy in support of his version of free will would be that if you could somehow go back in time before someone chooses something, and you know what they are choosing, they would still be freely choosing.

If I went back in time to kill Hitler before a point in his career for instance, all things considered if they happened the same way, he would make the same free choice.

What Avalon seems to reconcile with here is that God not only is merely aware of the future, he created everything in the first place, set up the rules, and set it off in motion himself. That makes a difference to other people, but not Avalon it seems.

 

[Halfcentaur]

I would still say depriving a being of free will is a lesser crime or a lesser sin than eternally punishing a being, no matter what free will is. I would qualify eternal consequence as the worst thing possible.

 

[Halfcentaur]

I agree with Sam Harris however when it comes to free will. It's just a working framework we function within that is not really there.