Free will and omniscience

[Aridas]

There is another option. That there is some facet of the universe we haven't discovered yet which makes even quantum effects perfectly predictable. While this allows for an infinite-knowledge oracle without time travel shenanigans, it also renders the argument moot since it means the universe is even more deterministic than determinists would argue. We would all be objects in orbit, unable to even consider deviating from our current path.

How is that not exactly what determinism is? Other than the unable to even consider deviating from our current path. One can consider all kinds of things without negating determinism in any way. If determinism was the case, you couldn't have not considered what you considered, after all.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

How is that not exactly what determinism is? Other than the unable to even consider deviating from our current path. One can consider all kinds of things without negating determinism in any way. If determinism was the case, you couldn't have not considered what you considered, after all.

Quantum effects aren't deterministic. You can work out the probability that a given entangled particle will collapse one way vs another, but that's as far as you can go.

However, if we postulate a being with sufficient foreknowledge as to correctly predict every quantum event, it would imply that even quantums are deterministic.

 

[Roboramma]

You can if you have a time machine. Picture this: we entangle a particle, then measure its state, causing the superposition to collapse. Now, I get in my time machine, go back thirty minutes, and bet you $100 that I know what the particle will collapse to. We observe it with the same observation, and it collapses to the same state it already had last time around. One observation, one collapse event.

There's nothing that I know of in the laws of physics to suggest that highlighted bit would happen.

 

[Brian-M]

Problem is, Brian, even observing the system affects system. So you can't (in a physical system) have a being that observes but has no effect. If you want to have a non-physical being, you'll have to posit a supernatural system. Good luck with proving that.

But an omniscient entity wouldn't need to observe anything, because it already knows whats happening.

(And I'd like to hear an explanation of how an omniscient being could come to exist in the first place without invoking supernatural processes.)

Can I just make one rather important observation here?

There's no such thing as a time machine.

Obvious, yes, but: We're discussing free will and causality here, and time machines violate causality. If we try to understand causality by thought experiments predicated on the nonexistence of causality - which is effectively what anyone is doing the moment they posit the existence of a time machine - then any conclusions we reach must invariably be invalid, because they're based on a contradiction.

So anyone whose thought experiment involves a time machine should probably not be doing that particular thought experiment.

Dave

A prescient omniscient entity would possess future information now. This is the equivalent of time travel for information. So an omniscient being is a time machine.

 

[Roboramma]

There's nothing that I know of in the laws of physics to suggest that highlighted bit would happen.

By the way, Avalon, one of the points that I was making earlier, which I don't think you noticed, or at least didn't respond to, was that a universe with an omniscient entity must necessarily behave as Beelzebuddy suggests: that is, the outcomes of quantum events are already pre-determined.

I suppose there's a way around this, which is if we accept the many worlds interpretation of QM, in which case the omniscient entity simply knows everything about all worlds. Everything is still predetermined, of course, but this is at least consistent with QM.

 

[Dave Rogers]

A prescient omniscient entity would possess future information now. This is the equivalent of time travel for information. So an omniscient being is a time machine.

Which is why, when we posit the existence of an omniscient entity, we run into exactly the same contradictions concerning causality and free will that we do with a time machine. Hence, it's not possible to resolve the contradictions arising from omniscience by hypothesising a time machine.

Dave

 

[Belz...]

I looked at Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster.com, and Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and they all have the same common definition, as I have frequently referred to.
However, you seem to want to expand that definition to include your argument against choice or free will.
Using personal, uncommon definitions to establish an argument is generally considered inappropriate. Actually, though, it's ludicrous.
That is your option, but of course then it leaves you out of the mainstream line of this thread.

If you wish to continue the argument with a universally accepted definition then you still have to show how knowing equates to an absolute barrier on choice.

Fundamentally, you have to show that it is not possible for the choice to have been the generator of the knowledge.

Dodge noted.

Tell me what YOUR definition of omniscience is.

 

[Belz...]

Omniscience is defined as knowing everything.

What ? Isn't that exactly what I said, in fewer words ? How can you rant against my definition, then ?

 

[tsig]

What ? Isn't that exactly what I said, in fewer words ? How can you rant against my definition, then ?

Well the omniscient being knows everything except how to tell time so it doesn't know that A happened before B so free will is possible.

At least that's how I understand BT75 and AX.

 

[dlorde]

And to address dlorde's final point in that scenario...

Now, the really interesting situation comes when you ask the omniscient being (who, incidentally, never lies) which way you're going to turn next time, and he tells you before you get there...

He won't say which way I intend to turn because he knows that I intend to turn the opposite direction to the one he tells me, so that any verbal prediction he makes would be self-negating.

OK, well that just avoids answering the question I asked. In my scenario he doesn't lie and he does tell you which way you'll turn. If you don't like that variation, what about the one where you somehow manage to catch a sight of what he wrote before you make the turn? [This is by way of making a point about the inherent paradoxes in the certainty of future predictions delivered by omniscience].

If a prescient entity interferes in events, it must take the effect of it's own actions into account.

That's the whole point. If, at human present time A, the entity already knows, with certainty, what will happen at human future time B, then nothing the entity, or anyone else, does in the meantime can change that - otherwise the knowledge wasn't/isn't certain.

 

[AvalonXQ]

That's the whole point. If, at human present time A, the entity already knows, with certainty, what will happen at human future time B, then nothing the entity, or anyone else, does in the meantime can change that - otherwise the knowledge wasn't/isn't certain.

You've defined "certainty of event X at time A" as "negating, at time A, any possibility or capability of acting other than according to event X".

Based on that definition of "certainty", I claim that omniscience doesn't imply "certainty". Atemporal omniscience knows the outcome of events; that doesn't in any way constrain the possible outcomes.

 

[GeeMack]

You've defined "certainty of event X at time A" as "negating, at time A, any possibility or capability of acting other than according to event X".

Based on that definition of "certainty", I claim that omniscience doesn't imply "certainty". Atemporal omniscience knows the outcome of events; that doesn't in any way constrain the possible outcomes.

You're defining omniscience as not-all-knowing, and that mistake is resulting in your failure. Here's a clue: Use the actual definition of the term rather than the one you made up. Omniscience means all knowing.

ETA: And you're trying to redefine "certainty" to mean "not-certain". Again, if you stop making up meanings for terms you'll understand why you continue to fail to make your point.

 

[AvalonXQ]

You're defining omniscience as not-all-knowing, and that mistake is resulting in your failure.

Can you provide a single example of something that an omniscient being under my definition does not know?

Please make sure to cite the specific posts of mine that support your claim and example.

 

[GeeMack]

Can you provide a single example of something that an omniscient being under my definition does not know?

You said...

You've defined "certainty of event X at time A" as "negating, at time A, any possibility or capability of acting other than according to event X".

Based on that definition of "certainty", I claim that omniscience doesn't imply "certainty". Atemporal omniscience knows the outcome of events; that doesn't in any way constrain the possible outcomes.

Omniscience implies certainty, because omniscience means all knowing. Certainty means it will be. If something will be, not-something will not be. But feel free to play fast and loose with the meanings of omniscience and certainty, and to add alternative universes and other made up nonsense to support your otherwise unsupportable position.

Please make sure to cite the specific posts of mine that support your claim and example.

Done.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Because you failed to answer the question, I'll ask it again: precisely what fact is it that you claim my definition of an omniscient being does not know?

 

[Tricky]

You've defined "certainty of event X at time A" as "negating, at time A, any possibility or capability of acting other than according to event X".

Based on that definition of "certainty", I claim that omniscience doesn't imply "certainty". Atemporal omniscience knows the outcome of events; that doesn't in any way constrain the possible outcomes.

Yes because "Atemporal" omniscience exists "without time", a physical and logical impossibility. In other words, magic. Just call it what it is.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Yes because "Atemporal" omniscience exists "without time", a physical and logical impossibility.

I disagree. There's nothing physically or logically impossible about it.

In other words, magic. Just call it what it is.

Depends on what you mean by "magic". I don't usually mind the term when used to describe transcendent properties like this; they certainly are outside of our standard phenomenological milieu and are unlikely to be acheived by humans.

So, sure, "magic". Why not? Omnipotence and omnipresence would almost certainly be "magic" too; asserting that omniscience falls in that category isn't unreasonable.

 

[GeeMack]

Because you failed to answer the question, I'll ask it again: precisely what fact is it that you claim my definition of an omniscient being does not know?

You stated above that omniscience doesn't imply certainty. You are wrong.

And I most certainly did answer your question.

 

[Tricky]

I disagree. There's nothing physically or logically impossible about it.



Depends on what you mean by "magic". I don't usually mind the term when used to describe transcendent properties like this; they certainly are outside of our standard phenomenological milieu and are unlikely to be acheived by humans.

So, sure, "magic". Why not? Omnipotence and omnipresence would almost certainly be "magic" too; asserting that omniscience falls in that category isn't unreasonable.

Well gosh. Anything is possible with magic. Why would you be interested in logic or evidence at all?

But maybe we should alter the statment to, "Free will and omniscience can co-exist, so long as there is magic."

Now you must excuse me, I'm late for my class at Hogwarts.

 

[AvalonXQ]

And I most certainly did answer your question.

You certainly did not.

Here is your claim:

You're defining omniscience as not-all-knowing, and that mistake is resulting in your failure.

I'll ask the question again: precisely what fact does an omniscient being, according to my definition, not know?
If you can't actually provide one, explain how a being that knows everything is "not-all-knowing".