Free will and omniscience

[Tricky]

good point, but this doesn't apply to the god of the bible, which provides supposed end times predictions. He can't be ignorant of the future and simultaneously inform what events will come.

He could be a really good predictor. He has an incredible database of knowledge, so he's going to be "almost" right the vast majority of the time. Sort of like Hari Seldon's "psychohistory" in the Foundation novels. Good at big trends. Not so hot at smaller events.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Avalon, can you tell me what the choice is that your God permits us the free will to choose?

And can you tell me why it would be bad or wrong or negative of God to not allow us the free will to make that choice?

 

[Brian-M]

If omniscience means "knowing everything that will ever happen", then free will cannot co-exist with a being that has this power. But maybe "omniscience" isn't quite so complete. Maybe it means "knowing everything that has ever happened", which would suggest that future events, while predictable to some extent with such vast knowledge, are not perfectly predictable. This would give an escape clause to those who would try to argue that perfect knowledge is still imperfect.

Personally, I make the distinction between prescient omniscience and non-prescient omniscience. But since everyone else seems to agree that prescience is by default a subset of omniscience when the term is uses without qualification, it's something of a moot point.

(Although, prescience could not logically exist in a universe that wasn't wholly deterministic, unless time travel were possible. So I don't see why an omniscient entity is always assumed to be prescient.)

And while we're arguing semantics, what the heck is the difference between "free will" and just regular "will"?

That's a good point. Out of curiosity, what is your definition of free will? I can add it to the list. (If you look at my definition, the distinction between free will and non-free will is clear. If someone is tinkering around in your brain to force you to make specific choices, then your will isn't free.)

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.

 

[Chucky]

The problem is that an omniscient being cannot be understood by us sufficiently, to deal with the issue of freewill. If you examine a sequence of choices in any detail you come up against potentially infinite regression. This may be manageable if we're dealing with numbers or atoms. But when we are dealing with a being and what this being knows it becomes impossible in any relevant way.

I am only required to remind one of the implications of infinity when applied to knowing, to illustrate this.

Say I was deciding what to cook for dinner in a hypermarket. The omniscient being would know/be aware of an infinite variation in possible outcomes in the hypermarket. Indeed with such insight as one would expect from such a being, the being would know how the combination of every atom in an infinitely large universe would affect the movement and interaction of every atom down to the Planck scale (and infinitely beyond it). In fact it would be aware of many infinitely short segments of time between the change of state between two atoms in the hypermarket and its implications.

When the choice was made about what the dinner would consist of, there would potentially be infinite variation in influencing factors for the precise chemical change which swung the issue to become lost in. Such complexity would be a breeze for this being to know. In fact it would know infinitely more details than that.

The distinction between a free choice and a pre-determined choice would become lost in the detail and the difference in cosmic impact between the few choices I was actually realistically likely to chose from might be so slight that there may be space for a genuinely free choice to be made.

Not to mention the large number of choices I was involved in between the entrance of the hypermarket and the point where the menu for the evening were known to myself.

And during all this I knew I was either going to have omelette or curry. I just hadn't made up my mind yet.

No, if a meal will be cooked at some time in the hypermarket, despite all the choices the omniscient knows what the meal will be. That's the point of omniscience. And the choice can't be changed. Because the omniscience knows any meal that will ever be cooked in the hypermarket and everything there is to know about the ingredients and the cook. But if it turns out it doesn't know one certain thing, then it is no longer omniscient. Period. As omniscience must know and any changing of that knowledge cancels that knowledge. You must cook what you will cook or it removes knowledge from the omniscient which is not allowed for it to remain so. It can't know what will happen if you have a free will because that means you make choices it can't expect. You would remove it's power completely.

 

[H'ethetheth]

It has not.

Is there any chance someone can construct the argument as an actual logical syllogism? I would be interested to see if we can point out the background assumption that we disagree about.

I'm pretty sure the disagreement must be in the definition of "free choice".

I find it hard to formulate a concise definition, but I can say I find it hard to define a choice as "free" if the outcome is knowable with absolute certainty.
I will admit it may feel like a free choice to a choosing agent, because as it is choosing the outcome is apparently not known to it, but if there is absolute knowledge about the unique outcome, I don't see how the freedom of this choice isn't illusory.

 

[Belz...]

It has not.

Is there any chance someone can construct the argument as an actual logical syllogism? I would be interested to see if we can point out the background assumption that we disagree about.

Why bother ? You haven't listened to the logical demonstrations so far.

 

[Roboramma]

But including beings with free will in the painting, means placing parts of the painting that determine their own color.

Let's use space as an analogy for time, and present a two-dimensional painting as something similar to a space-time diagram.

In that case, I suppose what you're saying is that the colour of the paint at the top of the painting is determined by the colour, or at least some properties, of the paint at the bottom of the painting, yes?

(If not, then, in the context of the painting, what do you mean by "determine their own colour"?)

The analogy would be if I had a special kind of paint that, when I put it on the canvas, can decide to turn blue or green as I'm painting it. Then the description has meaning -- "this part of the painting could be blue, but it's green". An omniscient being could see that the paint is green but still recognize that it could have been blue -- that the object in the painting itself has a choice.

But we're not looking at this from the perspective of a painting being painted: some sort of incomplete work. For the omniscient being the painting is already there, the whole this is painted, perhaps because it is atemporal, but if nothing else, in it's mind.

In that context paint changing colour as you're painting it loses meaning, because it's already painted, it's no different from any other kind of paint at this point. It's either green or blue, but not both.

Now, you'll note that I actually agreed in another post with Brian's point that if you consider decision making as a computational process then certainly we make choices, and omniscience has absolutely no bearing on that. That decision making process will actually be there in the painting (perhaps in the pattern below the point at which the decision is made).

The fact that I built the track up to the point of the junction doesn't determine the junction, and the fact that I continue to build track before and after the junction doesn't render the junction meaningless (I could, of course, do so, but I won't and I certainly don't have to).

I don't think I disagree with any of that.

 

[punshhh]

It's a definition, punshhh. That's what the word MEANS.

So this is just a word game, nothing to do with reality.

 

[dafydd]

So this is just a word game, nothing to do with reality.

No. It's about communication, if you do not use the accepted meanings of words then we may as well not bother. We use those words to describe reality, real reality, not mystical ''reality''.

 

[punshhh]

No, if a meal will be cooked at some time in the hypermarket, despite all the choices the omniscient knows what the meal will be. That's the point of omniscience. And the choice can't be changed. Because the omniscience knows any meal that will ever be cooked in the hypermarket and everything there is to know about the ingredients and the cook. But if it turns out it doesn't know one certain thing, then it is no longer omniscient. Period. As omniscience must know and any changing of that knowledge cancels that knowledge. You must cook what you will cook or it removes knowledge from the omniscient which is not allowed for it to remain so. It can't know what will happen if you have a free will because that means you make choices it can't expect. You would remove it's power completely.

Yes I accept the point about free will and omniscience being incompatible. I am saying that omniscience is a nonsense from our perspective and if there were a being with it, we would be presumptuous to claim to know anything about it, other than the few occasions where we make decisions.

 

[punshhh]

No. It's about communication, if you do not use the accepted meanings of words then we may as well not bother. We use those words to describe reality, real reality, not mystical ''reality''.

So your going off on one about definitions now. Have you not noticed that when someone asks me for a definition, I refer them to the dictionary definition, as that is the way I am using the word.

 

[punshhh]

Ah, you mean poorly defined. So define it.

Free will;

"The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion".

'Random is imperfect' is a non-sequitur, and there is no 'sliding scale' of randomness - something is either random or it is not; Unless you mean the degree to which random events affect a process.

I am not a mathematician, but as I understand it truly random is a relative idea. Take the lotto, are the numbers selected at random?

 

[H'ethetheth]

Free will;

"The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion".

So given this definition, do I understand correctly that you see omniscience and free will as incompatible?

ETA: Sorry, I just saw the post in which you said exactly that. Never mind

 

[dafydd]

Yes I accept the point about free will and omniscience being incompatible. I am saying that omniscience is a nonsense from our perspective and if there were a being with it, we would be presumptuous to claim to know anything about it, other than the few occasions where we make decisions.

Who is saying that omniscience actually exists? There is only one perspective, ours.

 

[dafydd]

. Take the lotto, are the numbers selected at random?

Yes. Haven't you seen those machines on TV, choosing the balls at random?

 

[dafydd]

So your going off on one about definitions now. Have you not noticed that when someone asks me for a definition, I refer them to the dictionary definition, as that is the way I am using the word.

But you always use the word in your own way until somebody asks you to define it.

 

[Belz...]

So this is just a word game, nothing to do with reality.

1) You're the one trying to redefine known words.

2) Omniscience is an impossibility, so we're not actually talking about reality.

 

[Finster]

Let's say god is going to create a man who will walk down a street and at some point will be given the ability to make a choice on his own to turn either left or right. God has decided on this scenario that there are multiple things he can do. Before god pulls the ethereal trigger to create he has to decide if he will create the man with free will. Once god makes his choice the man can make any choice. Can god choose to allow free will?

No, if god knows ahead of time what his creation will choose then god is ultimately responsible for the choice.

However, I didn't read all of the posts and missed that Avalon is not factoring in an omnipotent creator, only omniscience, so my argument is not really applicable. My mistake.

 

[AvalonXQ]

You want a syllogism? Okay, here's one.

Major premise: There is a being who knows exactly what I will do.
Minor premise: I can do something.
Conclusion: What I do must be exactly what the being knew I would do.

If you can find a situation where the conclusion is other than this, given the two premises, then the major premise is wrong. (Or the minor premise, that I "do something", but that's pretty silly to argue that I can't "do something".)

Formal logic would be appreciated. You have conflated "will" with "must", which I disagree with.

 

[Tricky]

That's a good point. Out of curiosity, what is your definition of free will? I can add it to the list. (If you look at my definition, the distinction between free will and non-free will is clear.If someone is tinkering around in your brain to force you to make specific choices, then your will isn't free.)

Yeah, I have my own way of putting it which adds what I consider an important element.

"(Free) Will is the ability to choose between multiple, perceived options."

The word "perceived" is very important, because you can only choose an option if you are able to discern its existence. Thus, a dog may have free-will to a certain point, such as the "fight or flight" option, but a complex option like "negotiate" is beyond it. Thus, the more intelligent you are, the more free-will you have. An adult has more options than a baby, thus, more free-will.

But I leave that "tinkering around" stuff out, because it gets too complex. Is an advertising company "tinkering around" when it plants suggestions in your head? Your teachers? Your parents? So I just chuck all of that. You are the summation of all your inputs, mental and chemical, so regardless of where that input came from, it's still "you". And "you" are doing the choosing based on all your inputs.

Is it just the "illusion of free will" rather than actual free-will? Nobody has ever been able to clearly demonstrate that there is a difference, so it is a pointless distinction, in my opinion.