Free will and omniscience

[Bill Thompson 75]

I didn't say I said it, I said I explained it. Read again.

You presented no explanation.

That's not an exception. You are proposing a mechanism that avoids this problem. If you keep using the wrong terms, there is no chance of understanding.

The only mechanism I am proposing is omniscience.
There is no mechanism required to know something is out of temporal order other than the mechanism that allows omniscience. That is enough to understand that omniscience in and of itself presents an exception to your argument.

You should, otherwise you'll continue to reach wrong conclusions.

The time-frame of the OB is irrelevant to the idea of omniscience. The OB knows all, whenever the OB exists.

I asked you to point out to me a fallacy when I said "humour me", and you failed to do so. Asking for the actual definition and reference was a separate request. I see you're having a lot of trouble following the conversation.

I couldn't stop laughing when you asked for the fallacy to be pointed out to you.

I already DID. Do you even read my posts ? Why should I repeat myself again and again just because you don't read ?

Causality existed before Boolean logic.
Boolean logic is an algebraic system, it has nothing to do with causality.
That is why you are wrong about their interdependence.

That's not what we agreed to a few posts ago. Did you forget already ? The OB need not be omniscient always.

Your statement is a direct response to my statement here:
"The OB is omniscient at any time that it exists, which may be before, while, or after the chooser made his choice."
It's not possible to intelligently infer that that statement says that the OB must exist at all times.

If he does, now, how does this "choice goes back in time to inform the OB" work ?

I am not sure what you are asking here, but just think of it as working the way omniscience works.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

My questions keep getting ignored, but being a hard-headed optimist, I'm going to keep asking:

Silly Hypothetical Example Number 3:
In your kitchen there is a security camera that is wired through a worm hole (yes, magic) that sends a signal back in time 24 hours to my smartphone. I can watch the video feed on my phone and know what you will have for breakfast tomorrow.

1) In this scenario, is your freewill limited?

2) If 'yes':

a)If no one watches the video feed on the phone, is your freewill restored?​

b)If the video feed is recorded to the phones memory, but no one watches it, is your freewill restored?​

c)If the video feed goes back 24 hours and there is no device at all to capture it, is your freewill restored?​

There are multiple issues here which can obviate a comparison to omniscience.
What I can say is that the camera will record the choice for breakfast, and I don't see how the camera will force me to eat one thing rather than another.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

But that's not an acceptable solution if you also require that your omniscient being be capable of intervening in the world, even in a limited way. Once the OB is able to interact with the temporal world, free will is impossible.
Dave

This then addresses a debate other than the current one about omniscience and free will.

 

[keale]

The only mechanism I am proposing is omniscience.
There is no mechanism required to know something is out of temporal order other than the mechanism that allows omniscience. That is enough to understand that omniscience in and of itself presents an exception to your argument.

If said being is omniscient by definition that being would know everything INCLUDING the order of events if not then that being is not omniscient but rather like that movie minority report where they look into their future machine.

 

[SumDood]

Or, in the case of the video feed to the smartphone, I see myself eat cornflakes for breakfast tomorrow, so tomorrow morning I have rice krispies just to be different, which means I couldn't have seen myself eat the cornflakes even though I did. The implications are much smaller, but it's no less of a paradox. And even if I didn't see myself eat the cornflakes, the information still existed, so if the smartphone shows me eating the cornflakes and I eat the rice krispies then my eating the cornflakes both did and didn't happen.

Yes, and this goes back to the conflicting theories of time travel:

1. If one goes back in time, one can change the time from when he traveled (Back to the Future, Sound of Thunder, etc.)​

2. If one goes back in time, it doesn't matter what one does because its already happened in the past (Timerider, By His Bootstraps, etc.)​

Its all just mental masturbation, I suppose, when you get down to it.

It's just about possible, I suppose, to resolve the paradox if it's impossible for the knowledge to get from the OB to me by any conceivable means; in that case, the OB's knowledge could be taken to be outside time and causality, and so would be logically no different to knowing everything after it happened. But that's not an acceptable solution if you also require that your omniscient being be capable of intervening in the world, even in a limited way. Once the OB is able to interact with the temporal world, free will is impossible.

I think the stipulation in this thread is we are dealing with a being that knows everything, with no interaction with the universe other than observing. Does observing count as interaction?

I'd like to add that if the OB is omniscient, he can't be outside of time and causality and unable to interact with the universe, because if he is then there is no way for him to acquire any knowledge of that universe.

I don't think we're worrying about how the knowledge was obtained, just like we don't worry about how the wormhole works in my scenario.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

That isn't a rebuttal. It's simply a trivial claim that a statement unrelated to causality violation doesn't demonstrate that causality violation is impossible.

Note that my statement made no reference to causality violation, and so your remark that it did is irrelevant.

It's a complete non sequitur.

And so is the claim of a non sequitur.

That conclusion is self-contradictory. If the choice forms the OB's knowledge, and that knowledge is available at a time before the choice, then only the choice taken is possible, negating free will.

The conclusion is self-contradictory? You don't even come close to showing that.
What you show is my argument followed by the presumption that my argument is wrong.

As usual, there is no analysis, just a stand alone claim that is assumed true.
My argument:
Knowledge is available at a time before the choice. (by expanding the definition)
The choice forms the OB's knowledge. (not disallowed by the definition)
Therefore, the choice is not constrained by the knowledge. (reasonable conclusion)

Your rebuttal:
Only the choice taken is possible, negating free will. (basically the same old gainsaying)

Are you sure you know what "self-contradictory" means?

Unless, of course, your hypothetical OB exists completely outside causality, and cannot be said therefore to possess the knowledge of the choice "before" the choice. If you wish to postulate a God who cannot, by definition, interact with causality in any way, I have no issues with your postulate other than that it is by definition unnecessary. Any definition of an omniscient God capable of interacting with causlity, however, is clearly incompatible with free will.
Dave

Again, the a/temporality of the OB is not relevant. It is the atemporality of the OB's knowledge which forms the argument and is a direct corollary of the definition.

If you want to argue that the the OB's knowledge, which it can possess prior to the event that forms the knowledge, is outside of causality, well then, that would be an entirely different debate from this one.

Any definition of an omniscient God capable of interacting with causlity, however, is clearly incompatible with free will.
Dave

Again, if you assume your point is true, you are not really participating in the debate, are you.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

If said being is omniscient by definition that being would know everything INCLUDING the order of events if not then that being is not omniscient but rather like that movie minority report where they look into their future machine.

Yes (addressed before), an OB would know all things out of their temporal order and also the temporal order in which events forming the knowledge occurred.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Note that my statement made no reference to causality violation, and so your remark that it did is irrelevant.

Your problem is that you don't understand the implications of what you're saying. Causality violation is implicit in omniscience. And since you don't even understand your own arguments, there seems little point in trying to explain any others to you.

Dave

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Your problem is that you don't understand the implications of what you're saying. Causality violation is implicit in omniscience. And since you don't even understand your own arguments, there seems little point in trying to explain any others to you.
Dave

I don't raise the issue of causality violation because it has no relevance to this debate.
Whether an OB can really exist in our universe or not is not what this debate is about.
If you disagree then present your argument that "omniscience vs free will" is not appropriate for debate and then we can go on without you..

The closest that causality has come to this debate is the claim that atemporal knowledge related to a choice and atemporal knowledge informed by a choice involves two different kinds of causality, one kind of violation is okay but another kind is not (never mind that the difference was never clarified), and therefore, my conclusions are wrong.
Of course, this argument is ridiculous.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I don't raise the issue of causality violation because it has no relevance to this debate.

Then you have not the faintest understanding of the arguments you are trying to present or refute. Omniscience, since it must involve the possession of knowledge before the fact, inevitably implies causality violation.

The closest that causality has come to this debate is the claim that atemporal knowledge related to a choice and atemporal knowledge informed by a choice involves two different kinds of causality, one kind of violation is okay but another kind is not (never mind that the difference was never clarified), and therefore, my conclusions are wrong.

As I recall, it was you who tried to draw the meaningless distinction between knowledge of a choice before the fact informed by, or not informed by, that choice, and claim that the former was acceptable. Do you now wish to withdraw that argument, since you seem to believe it's absurd?

Dave

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Then you have not the faintest understanding of the arguments you are trying to present or refute. Omniscience, since it must involve the possession of knowledge before the fact, inevitably implies causality violation.

If you think that it is not possible to rationally debate an idea such as "omniscience vs free will" then you can drop out of the debate and others can go on without you.

As I recall, it was you who tried to draw the meaningless distinction between knowledge of a choice before the fact informed by, or not informed by, that choice, and claim that the former was acceptable. Do you now wish to withdraw that argument, since you seem to believe it's absurd?
Dave

Present that post. If you cannot then respond to the prior post.

 

[GeeMack]

I don't raise the issue of causality violation because it has no relevance to this debate.

You say the chooser making the alleged free-will choice is how the omniscient being knows the outcome of the choice. But since the omniscient being knows the outcome before the choice is made, the choice will be as the all-knowing being knows it will be. Causality necessarily implies a sequence of events, a before and an after. You want it both ways, hence the causality violation.

Your willful ignorance of the issue may be convenient for you because then the omniscient can be atemporal in one post and dependent on a time constrained sequence of events in another. But hey, nothing has stopped you yet from dishonestly changing the criteria from post to post, so by all means, stick to that failed strategy.

The closest that causality has come to this debate is the claim that atemporal knowledge related to a choice and atemporal knowledge informed by a choice involves two different kinds of causality, one kind of violation is okay but another kind is not (never mind that the difference was never clarified), and therefore, my conclusions are wrong.

Now you're just babbling gibberish. It looks like Dave is onto something...

Your problem is that you don't understand the implications of what you're saying.

Then you have not the faintest understanding of the arguments you are trying to present or refute.

 

[Belz...]

You presented no explanation.

Of course I did. I explained that you proposed a mechanism through which the OB acquires omniscience.

I couldn't stop laughing when you asked for the fallacy to be pointed out to you.

That must be why you forgot to point it out.

Boolean logic is an algebraic system, it has nothing to do with causality.
That is why you are wrong about their interdependence.

That's like saying mathematics is just a language and therefore has no interdependence with numbers.

Your statement is a direct response to my statement here:
"The OB is omniscient at any time that it exists, which may be before, while, or after the chooser made his choice."
It's not possible to intelligently infer that that statement says that the OB must exist at all times.

What the hell does that have to do with my post ? You said the OB is omniscient at any time that it exists. I said we agreed that the OB doesn't need to be omniscient at all times. What's your disagreement, now ?

I am not sure what you are asking here, but just think of it as working the way omniscience works.

What I'm asking you is to be consistent. Either the OB is atemporal, in which case it cannot be informed by the choice itself, or it is not atemporal, in which case causality is violated by the means through which it acquires omniscience.

 

[Belz...]

I don't think we're worrying about how the knowledge was obtained, just like we don't worry about how the wormhole works in my scenario.

Except that the former is logically inconsistent. If the OB cannot interact with our universe, it cannot know anything about it. It's just a logical consequence of placing it outside of space-time. I guess it works in fiction but if we're trying to eliminate problems with Bill's proposal, we should avoid glaring contradictions.

 

[Belz...]

Then you have not the faintest understanding of the arguments you are trying to present or refute. Omniscience, since it must involve the possession of knowledge before the fact, inevitably implies causality violation.

Not necessarily. The OB could have knowledge derived from perfect knowledge of physics and the initial state of the universe. This only works in a deterministic universe, though, and it precludes Bill's proposal.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

You say the chooser making the alleged free-will choice is how the omniscient being knows the outcome of the choice.

If the chooser did not make a choose, there would be nothing for the OB to know, now would there?

But since the omniscient being knows the outcome before the choice is made, the choice will be as the all-knowing being knows it will be.

Yes, and this doesn't counter my argument at all.

Causality necessarily implies a sequence of events, a before and an after. You want it both ways, hence the causality violation.

This is still the same argument that omniscience violates causality.
Since no one has disagreed with that maybe you could just drop it instead of wasting time on it.

Your willful ignorance of the issue may be convenient for you because then the omniscient can be atemporal in one post and dependent on a time constrained sequence of events in another.

If you could show just one instance of this it would be helpful.

But hey, nothing has stopped you yet from dishonestly changing the criteria from post to post, so by all means, stick to that failed strategy.

Your dishonesty argument still doesn't go anywhere.

Now you're just babbling gibberish. It looks like Dave is onto something...

It is gibberish, so in a sense I am babbling, it's just that it's not my gibberish.

 

[I Ratant]

If the chooser did not make a choose, there would be nothing for the OB to know, now would there?


...

.
Not doing something is a choice.
The OB knows this also.
The chooser will be doing something.
And the OB knows what that is.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Of course I did. I explained that you proposed a mechanism through which the OB acquires omniscience.

Could you name that mechanism for the audience?

That's like saying mathematics is just a language and therefore has no interdependence with numbers.

This analogy is so wrong there are not words to clarify it, but I try:

Boolean logic (an axiomatic system) is to causality (a non-axiomatic system)
as the language of mathematics (an axiomatic system) is to numbers (a subset of the axiomatic system).

A sphere compares to a cube as another sphere compares to a smaller sphere.

Comparing similar things is the same as comparing dissimilar things.

Oops, analogy failure there.
Clarified and rejected.

What the hell does that have to do with my post ? You said the OB is omniscient at any time that it exists. I said we agreed that the OB doesn't need to be omniscient at all times. What's your disagreement, now ?

I said, "The OB is omniscient at any time that it exists, which may be before, while, or after the chooser made his choice."
You replied, "That's not what we agreed to a few posts ago."
You may be confused about what was agreed to.
At anytime the OB is not omniscient it is not an OB.

What I'm asking you is to be consistent.
Either the OB is atemporal, in which case it cannot be informed by the choice itself

First, this doesn't make any sense because if the OB knows the choice before it occurs, then the knowledge (not the OB) is atemporal, and if it knows the choice it can certainly be because that is the choice that is made.
Second, you seem to think that this is not a violation of causality as compared to your following point.

, or it is not atemporal, in which case causality is violated by the means through which it acquires omniscience.

What has a violation of causality have to do with a debate about omniscience?

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

.
Not doing something is a choice.
The OB knows this also.
The chooser will be doing something.
And the OB knows what that is.

Agreed, now let's search for some way that this is relevant.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Let's review.
An OB knows any choice that is made before it is made.
This may violate causality.
The OB may know the choice simply because the choice is made.
Synonymously, the choice may inform the knowledge.
This means that the OB's knowledge did not constrain the choice.
This may violate the very same causality.
The argument that this violates causality is an argument that maybe omniscience cannot really exist.
The argument that omniscience cannot really exist is irrelevant to this debate.
If we accept that omniscience is not real in our universe but that it is still possible to discuss it, the same as many other ideas, then there is no rebuttal to the compatibility of omniscience and free will.