Free will and omniscience

[Bill Thompson 75]

Sure. I understand it. It's still not particularly relevant. What's relevant is the nature of reality. The knowledge part is only a potential byproduct of such and is not required to actually exist.
No. Omnipotence is not required. Had I meant Omnipotence, I would have said Omnipotence.
Amusing.
You know, I'm going to have to turn that right back at you.

I have been addressing the OP's OP.
I don't know where you trolled in from.

 

[sadhatter]

The way i see it is as follows.

Think of the board game mousetrap ( ignoring the fact that 99% of the time, you never get far enough to actually see the friggen trap go off. But that is a rant for another time.), one can play the game, know that the little man jumps into the tub, which makes the bell fall, etc., one can know how dice work, one can even know their friend's playing styles, and still one is not in control of the game. All the choices available, are there, and ready for people to take.

But they are only there because no one controls, every last random factor in the game. If the owner of the game controlled how the dice landed, the way the spaces on the board were set up, etc. then effectively , while it may seem like one has choices, they simply do not. Just because they could have rolled a 3 or a 4, has no meaning if someone has designed the game from atom 1, and sets the dice up to roll a 1.

Omniscience, is a red herring in the entire debate. It is the equivalent of saying " Okay, so what if Chuck Lidell wasn't the size he is, and didn't have the training he does, think i would win a fight against him?" , your ignoring too many properties of the thing being debated to make the debate have any meaning.

This all reminds me of when folks like to say "That is against god's will." , and it is essentially what this debate is. The op could have made a much more concise post by simply asking " Is it possible to go against god's will." , but the logical answer is no, with a side order of "What a silly concept.". If i tried to go against the will of a 6'6 gent, who is three hundred pounds of muscle, armed with a shotgun, in full body armor, while i am unarmed, and at my present towering 5'7, it is simply not going to work out. And anyone who would attempt to debate me on this, either has an inflated opinion of me, or doesn't understand the terms "Shotgun" , "Body Armor" , nor what i mean when i say 6'6 and 300 pounds. Now considering god is literally infinitely more powerful ( in any way one could think of.), it is simple logic that it is impossible to go against what he wants done.

The long and short of it is that god is an overpowered character, and like all overpowered characters, he gets less interesting with time, because of the simple fact that he is overpowered. Any debate, if his actual properties are taken into account will end with "God wins.", so the only way to even debate about the topic is to handicap god.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

I don't think Avalon has any problem understanding your simple notion. It is simple, it is easy to understand. You mistakenly think that the only possible reason he could disagree with you is that he doesn't understand you, and that's your mistake, not his.

You confuse "predicted" with "set in stone", and they're not at all the same thing.

I understand, But I have said that X event it going to happen no matter what in the scenario


When you say, "nothing happens without my will" you're introducing a new element to the discussion that wasn't there before. Knowing something will happen and willing it to happen are two different things. An omnipotent being could certainly force you to do whatever it wanted, but that's a different discussion. This discussion is about omniscience, not omnipotence.

Fair Enough. But iirc is that not one of the numerous powers the magic sky daddy has? That nothing happens without his control?



Think of a weatherman. He predicts the weather, but he doesn't cause it. The weather does what it does regardless of the weatherman's predictions, but because the weatherman understands the laws of physics as they pertain to weather, he's able to accurately predict its outcome.

That's an imperfect analogy because the weather is not a conscious entity capable of decision making, but it works well as an example of something that behaves exactly the same regardless of the existence of something making predictions about it.

Another example would be a sports handicapper. That's someone who's paid to predict the outcome of sporting events (for the purpose of gambling), yet his predictions have nothing to do with the actual behavior of the individual members of the sports teams, all of whom are agents capable of free will.

Emphasis mine

Again I'm trying to illustrate that if X event is going to happen because I have seen it happen; To clarify that I'm not saying I predicted it, I'm saying because in this scenario I'm playing god; I know it's going to happen for sure, 100% of X will happen.

If that is true then no freewill exists, It simply can't the outcome is already predetermined and all I'm left with is the illusion of choice.

 

[Aridas]

I have been addressing the OP's OP.
I don't know where you trolled in from.

So, you take an obviously insulting tone, tell me what I'm saying quite incorrectly, and then call me a troll?

My, I bow to the sheer worthiness of how well you can support your points. Go ahead, not a troll, and wow us with your brilliance.

 

[tsig]

The difference is a matter of degree, like the difference between believing and knowing. It doesn't change the underlying principles.

I see we're in Humpty Dumpty territory where a word means just what you want it to mean no more and no less.

When I use the word idiot I mean genius so you won't be offended when I call you an idiot.

 

[tsig]

The standard definition of an OB is an entity that knows everything at all times.
This would preclude necessarily accessing knowledge sequentially and that is why my point that
"The OB knows everything just not in a linear temporal order" is true by definition.
As to why you can't grasp that, who knows?

You're sincerely arguing that god can't tell time?

 

[AvalonXQ]

There is no free will if the choices and outcomes have been set since the beginning of time and can't be altered.

How does omniscience imply that about the choices and outcomes?

 

[AvalonXQ]

Emphasis mine

Again I'm trying to illustrate that if X event is going to happen because I have seen it happen;

That "because" is where we disagree.

X is going to happen because I will pick it. God may know this, but that knowledge is not the cause of X. My choice is.

 

[tsig]

That "because" is where we disagree.

X is going to happen because I will pick it. God may know this, but that knowledge is not the cause of X. My choice is.

You could have picked Y?

 

[Good Lt]

That "because" is where we disagree.

X is going to happen because I will pick it. God may know this, but that knowledge is not the cause of X. My choice is.

But you are not permitted to pick Y because you picking Y is not part of the beings plan.

 

[AvalonXQ]

But you are not permitted to pick Y because you picking Y is not part of the beings plan.

So now you're claiming that the being is only "omniscient" because it forces us to act according to its plan?

I don't accept this; I want to consider an entirely passive, powerless omniscient being.

Do you claim the omniscience itself, without any ancillary powers, eliminates free will?

 

[tsig]

So now you're claiming that the being is only "omniscient" because it forces us to act according to its plan?

I don't accept this; I want to consider an entirely passive, powerless omniscient being.

Do you claim the omniscience itself, without any ancillary powers, eliminates free will?

I have a book, every thing you will do is written in this book, this book is true, now do you have a choice to not do what is in the book?

 

[Nay_Sayer]

That "because" is where we disagree.

X is going to happen because I will pick it. God may know this, but that knowledge is not the cause of X. My choice is.

X is going to happen because god has planned it to happen,Your just follwing a pre scripted role with no way of altering what you can and cannot do.

 

[Good Lt]

So now you're claiming that the being is only "omniscient" because it forces us to act according to its plan?

I don't accept this; I want to consider an entirely passive, powerless omniscient being.

Do you claim the omniscience itself, without any ancillary powers, eliminates free will?

It doesn't matter what you want to consider.

The plan is the plan, and everything you will ever do is part of it whether you choose for it to be or not. It is already predetermined what the outcome is. Forever.

 

[AvalonXQ]

X is going to happen because god has planned it to happen,.

Explain how omniscience implies, by definition, that the omniscient being has planned anything at all.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Explain how omniscience implies, by definition, that the omniscient being has planned anything at all.

It may help to stress that you're not talking about Big J here, who by his own admittance is a bit of a meddler. In fairness to them, though, you generally are.

Can I propose the use of "oracle" rather than god? One of those dickish oracles whose prophecies only ever make sense when it's too late and it's clear she just gets her jollies pything people off.

 

[Mycroft]

My, I bow to the sheer worthiness of how well you can support your points. Go ahead, not a troll, and wow us with your brilliance.

I don't see any reason for anyone to be insulting or to put up with being insulted over this topic. It's purely abstract with literally no real-world ramifications. Even if we disagree, kudos to you for not putting up with that nonsense.

 

[BoogieWoogieWookie]

I don't know why this discussion has taken so many twists. It started with a simple premise concerning omniscience and free will. Now we seem to have added things as God and omnipotence and God's plan for every single event in the universe and God's creation of every single thing in the universe as necessary criteria for having an effect on free will.

This is not the case. The presence of ANY omniscient being destroys free will. You may still have the illusion of free will, but true free will is impossible if such a being exists.

Several people have stated this quite clearly already, but I'll try to throw it in there again.

First off, I will give this definition of an Omniscient Being as one in which there cannot be anything that it does not know. If there is anything that it does not know, then it is not omniscient. To be clear, you cannot make up things that it cannot know, such as what time events occur or the ordering of events.

Let's say that I have a friend, Fred, that is omniscient. I am going to play a game with AvalonXQ. Good Lt will oversee the game. What I am going to do is give AvalonXQ a deck of cards, a standard poker deck with 52 cards. I ask him to pick any card he wishes and place it face down on the table without showing anyone what it is. I am going to do this ten times, each time telling AvalonXQ to CHOOSE ANY OF THE REMAINING CARDS THAT HE WISHES, and place that card on top of the others.

We'll assume there is no way to cheat, but just to be sure we could have our friend Bill Thompson 75 to keep a watchful eye out to make sure everything is on the level.

Now, before we started, I asked my good friend, Fred the OB, to tell me all ten cards that AvalonXQ would pick (OB's know things like this, you see) and I wrote them down in order on a piece of paper that I sealed in an envelope and gave to AvalonXQ. I indicated to him that he should hold on to it tightly and make sure no one could get their hands on it until after the demonstration is over.

A short time later the card selections by AvalonXQ have been done and the cards are face down on the table. Good Lt and Bill Thompson 75 say all is OK and there has been no cheating.

Now, thinking AvalonXQ is a betting man and knows a sure thing, I tell him that I will wager $10,000.00 at 100 to 1 odds that the paper I gave him has a list of all ten cards that he picked in order. If there is even one miss, I will pay him one million dollars.

Will he take the bet? After all, if he was free to take ANY cards that he chose, then it would be highly unlikely that there would be a list of the exact cards that he would pick written down before he picked them.

Will he take that bet, knowing that he was free to pick any cards he wanted, and not just the ones on the list? Or does he really know that he had to pick the cards that were already on the list and therefore decline?

And now the Oracle chimes in and says "If you want to really blow your mind, what happens if you show AvalonXQ the list before he picks the cards?"

 

[Myriad]

So now you're claiming that the being is only "omniscient" because it forces us to act according to its plan?

I don't accept this; I want to consider an entirely passive, powerless omniscient being.

Do you claim the omniscience itself, without any ancillary powers, eliminates free will?

I think the general claim is that the existence of an omniscient being (however passive) precludes the possibility of free will.

Actually, even the possibility of the existence of an omniscient being (however passive the being or remote the possibility) precludes the possibility of free will.

We do not control the movements of the moon; however, we can predict the movements of the moon with almost perfect precision by applying comprehensive knowledge of the forces that move it. This is strong evidence that the moon does not choose its own course, and it's also strong evidence that no sentient agency with free will chooses the moon's course, because those hypotheses do not account for such predictability.

An omniscient being whose omniscience were based on perfect knowledge of the causal forces that move us (which of course an omniscient being must have, if such forces do exist) would show we lack free will just as our knowledge of the moon's orbit shows the moon lacks free will.

What about an omniscient being whose omniscience were based on direct perception of the world from a future or timeless vantage point? In that case the moon analogy doesn't work, but

The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on
nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

We don't, in the present, have free will to choose our past actions; and the immediate existence of any vantage point in which our present is the past likewise precludes (without even the need to posit any observer in that vantage point) any free will to choose our present actions.

----------

So why does the Bible call God omniscient?

Exaggeration. Especially in the face of numerous passages in which God makes decisions, reacts to events with every semblance of surprise (that is, learn things), and changes His mind. An omniscient being by definition cannot learn anything, cannot make a new decision, and could only appear to change his mind if he were deliberately acting silly.

If I were a mighty king of some appalling bronze age civilization, I'd be more insulted by an insinuation that I couldn't learn anything, than by an overt declaration that I didn't already know everything. But that's because I'm an educated member of an industrial civilization. Back in the bronze age, kings (like everyone) were primitive screwheads; they were probably too busy figuring out new ways to shove sharp objects through their own dicks to worry about perceiving the subtle insult in flattering words. So, mighty kings would kill you (probably after shoving sharp objects through your dick) if you didn't agree with them that they know everything.

So when people contemplated God, they had to imagine that God at least is as mighty as King Dickstabber VIII. Hence, God goes down in print as being omniscient.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Mycroft]

It may help to stress that you're not talking about Big J here, who by his own admittance is a bit of a meddler. In fairness to them, though, you generally are.

Can I propose the use of "oracle" rather than god? One of those dickish oracles whose prophecies only ever make sense when it's too late and it's clear she just gets her jollies pything people off.

I think that's an excellent suggestion. If you take God out of it, the issue becomes less emotionally charged.