Free will and omniscience

[Tony]

I certainly do, and you haven't given me one!
I claim that God's foreknowledge does not constrain behavior; you claim that it does but can't articulate why it does.
And then I get attacked for not listening. I'm certainly listening; I'm just not hearing more than bald assertions.

No, you don't. This "mechanism" dodge is a way for you to justify your faith-based contradictory position and from accepting the obvious. It has been articulated why many many times.

 

[AdMan]

Actually, the discussion has looked more like this...

THEM: Omniscience constrains behavior. Therefore, omniscience is incompatible with free will.

US: Omniscience places no constraint on behavior. Therefore, omniscience is compatible with free will.

<etc. snipped>

I'd define it better as omniscience describes behavior. If there is an omniscient god, he could write a book describing everything that will happen, and then simply disappear, leaving the book there.

I could imagine that I'm doing things according to my will, but I'm simply doing things according to god's book. Can I do anything that's not in the book, or that contradicts it? No, because then god was not omniscient to begin with.

I think AvalonXQ could try to argue, "Well, it's just as if the book were written by a future being, who is just describing the past," but that doesn't make any difference to me, living now, because as I go along in my life I still can't choose to do something that is not described in the book, which exists as I live--it's not something that will be written after I die. The book is my scripted existence--in advance.

My "free will" is simply an illusion.

 

[GeeMack]

I claim that God's foreknowledge does not constrain behavior; you claim that it does but can't articulate why it does.

It doesn't constrain behavior like forcing a choice. If the magical being is omniscient, the behavior will be what the omniscient being knows it to be. If that being knows it to occur one way, and it occurs differently, the being isn't omniscient. If the chooser perceives his/her choice as free will, it's just an illusion of choice. The results of the "choice" are already known to the omniscient.

And then I get attacked for not listening. I'm certainly listening; I'm just not hearing more than bald assertions.

But you aren't listening, not even to yourself. Remember this?...

I also wrote the OP to explicitly divorce this discussion from the Christian-based discussion on the other thread, and have attempted to keep the issue firmly on omniscience and not any other property ever since.

But it is about your god anyway, isn't it? Your self righteous indignation doesn't negate the clearly demonstrated fact that your argument is dishonest.

 

[AvalonXQ]

I think AvalonXQ could try to argue, "Well, it's just as if the book were written by a future being, who is just describing the past," but that doesn't make any difference to me, living now, because as I go along in my life I still can't choose to do something that is not described in the book, which exists as I live--it's not something that will be written after I die. The book is my scripted existence--in advance.

So, to make your position clear -- you don't consider this script when written in the future to constrain free will, but you believe it negates free will if the book is written in the past. Correct?

 

[AvalonXQ]

Your self righteous indignation doesn't negate the clearly demonstrated fact that your argument is dishonest.

Nine.

 

[Belz...]

So, to make your position clear -- you don't consider this script when written in the future to constrain free will, but you believe it negates free will if the book is written in the past. Correct?

I think he means that it makes no difference. You cannot stray from the script.

Free will is an illusion. But who cares, really ?

 

[AdMan]

So, to make your position clear -- you don't consider this script when written in the future to constrain free will, but you believe it negates free will if the book is written in the past. Correct?

I think he means that it makes no difference. You cannot stray from the script.

Well, yes--it doesn't really matter. Once that book describing everything that is to happen exists in the here and now (or once an omniscient being exists), then that means I cannot do anything that is not in the book, hence no free will.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Well, yes--it doesn't really matter. Once that book describing everything that is to happen exists in the here and now (or once an omniscient being exists), then that means I cannot do anything that is not in the book, hence no free will.

But a book I write today about events that happened last year does not restrict free will for those actions?

 

[Roboramma]

But a book I write today about events that happened last year does not restrict free will for those actions?

Not necessarily, anyway. It shows that the "chooser" can no longer make a choice between X and Y, but it doesn't show that X or Y was predetermined before that choice was made.

If only time-travel were possible we could do the experiment: go back in time, affect nothing, and watch and see if the same choices were made as we recorded in our book from the future. If choices are different, there is room for free will.

Of course, again, I'm assuming that free will is incompatible with determinism, mainly because as a concept it doesn't seem to mean anything if it's not, but to be honest I've never seen a definition of free will that made any sense to me.

I'm curious what you think about that, though: do you consider free will to be compatible with determinism, or not?

 

[GeeMack]

But a book I write today about events that happened last year does not restrict free will for those actions?

Let me help you out here. To everyone else in this discussion, "omnipotent" essentially means "knows everything". That's pretty much how it's defined in the English language. To you "omnipotent" appears to mean "doesn't know everything". Your misuse of the term, or applying your own specialized definition, seems to be the reason for your failure. It might be more productive for you if you would start using the term the same way everyone else does, or be forthright about your re-definition.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Your misuse of the term, or applying your own specialized definition, seems to be the reason for your failure. It might be more productive for you if you would start using the term the same way everyone else does, or be forthright about your re-definition.

Ten.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Not necessarily, anyway. It shows that the "chooser" can no longer make a choice between X and Y, but it doesn't show that X or Y was predetermined before that choice was made.

So, what exactly is the mechanism by which knowledge of persons unrelated to the events eliminates the free will to make a selection at the event itself? How does the knowledge apply a constraint that wasn't there previously?

 

[Roboramma]

So, what exactly is the mechanism by which knowledge of persons unrelated to the events eliminates the free will to make a selection at the event itself? How does the knowledge apply a constraint that wasn't there previously?

I don't think the knowledge does apply a constraint that wasn't there previously, rather it demonstrates that such a constraint exists. If it's possible to know your choice before you make it, that demonstrates that you don't have a choice, but it's not the knowledge itself that caused you to somehow lose free will that was already there.

Similarly if I can plug a lamp into an outlet and, turning it on, find it lights up, that demonstrates the the outlet has power, but my lamp didn't cause the outlet to get power.

To sum up: as I said elsewhere in the thread, omniscience demonstrates that the future is pre-determined, whatever the mechanism for that pre-determination may be. Omniscience doesn't cause such pre-determination.

I don't see how such pre-determination can be consistent with the idea of free will that most people seem to have, but as I said before I agree its consistent with the one that Brian put forward.

 

[tsig]

But a book I write today about events that happened last year does not restrict free will for those actions?

Omniscience means not just knowing the past but the future as well. So your book was already written before you did any of those actions.

 

[Myriad]

Hi Avalon,

I've been working on making an argument using (quasi) formal logic. While that's not complete yet, I think I've reached a point that illuminates a crucial issue.

Here's the start I've made.

Basic notation:
^ and
v or
~ not (negation)
-> implies

where n stands for any statement,

I means "I choose n"
G means "God [the omniscient agent] knows or predicts n"
P means "n is possible"

Where n stands for any true statement (theorem),

Omniscience premises:

Omniscience
n -> G
G -> n

It also follows (as contrapositives) that
~G -> ~n
~n -> ~G

Possibility premises:

Actuality Implies Possibility
n -> P

Impossibility
~P -> ~n (contrapositive from the previous premise)

Free will premises:

There exists A such that:

P(I(A)) ^ P(~I(A)) (free will)

and

~(I(A) ^ ~I(A)) (necessary choice)

(Example of A: "I eat of at least one apple between noon and 1:00 PM EDT on June 1, 2012")

Now, I've found I can't get anywhere without an additional premise we might call "divine consistency":

~(G ^ G(~n))

Without this, we get theorems applying to a world in which the omniscience is achieved by knowing or predicting every possibility. This might describe merely an inadequate definition of omniscience, or a (perhaps branching) universe in which every possibility comes to pass.

Now, to prove a contradiction in these premises, we need to show something like

G -> ~P(~n)

which would then lead to a contradiction with the free will premise. However, as I've defined "possibility" so far, with a single weak premise stating that what occurs must be possible, it appears this can't be done.

It seems, intuitively, that there must be a more powerful notion of possibility than my current one, as my current one is wholly subordinate to actuality.

On the other hand, it does not appear that you would accept G -> ~P(~n) as a premise; that indeed, that nonacceptance is your very point of contention in this thread.

In English, that disputed premise is: If an omniscient being predicts n, then it is necessarily impossible for not-n to occur.

So let me ask you: If an omniscient being predicts n, then in what sense is not-n possible?

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[GeeMack]

So, what exactly is the mechanism by which knowledge of persons unrelated to the events eliminates the free will to make a selection at the event itself? How does the knowledge apply a constraint that wasn't there previously?

Omniscient means all knowing. The outcome of decisions or choices are part of "all". That doesn't imply a constraint that wasn't there previously. It means the alleged free will decisions will result in the outcome that is known by the omnipotent being.

 

[Belz...]

But a book I write today about events that happened last year does not restrict free will for those actions?

Huh ?

 

[dafydd]

Huh ?

Huh indeed.

 

[Belz...]

So, what exactly is the mechanism by which knowledge of persons unrelated to the events eliminates the free will to make a selection at the event itself? How does the knowledge apply a constraint that wasn't there previously?

Avalon, you are simply confused. No one is saying that the knowledge eliminates free will. We're basically saying that if omniscience is possible, even in principle, then free will is impossible. Of course, if omniscience is impossible, it doesn't mean that free will is possible, either.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Myriad, that's excellent! That's exactly the dispute in this thread. Others take G -> -P(-n) to be a premise, and I don't.

I believe that premise can be attributed to a Bayesian probability paradigm.

To answer your question, it is my contention that foreknowledge has no necessary effect on potentiality -- that is, knowing that something will happen does not negate the potential that it could happen or not.

I also think there's a lot of trouble centering around the mechanism for omniscience -- the fact that the only mechanism that certain people can think of for omniscience being possible is determinism. I am, however, postulating a type of omniscience that can still occur in the absence of determinism -- namely, a temporal perspective. This is a being that can know the particle will be spin-up even while it is still superimposed and without negating its hybrid state.