Free will and omniscience

[Beelzebuddy]

From a material perspective, "free will" is a meaningless statement. Your actions are deterministic, decreed by the thin soup of electrical activity in your noggin.

So any discussion of free will, whatever else it means, has to assume a theological standpoint. From the thread so far, I assume we're going for an Abrahamic angle, right? In that case I'd like to proffer the meaning of free will as the ability to go against God's Plan. Can you successfully act to spite God, or has that been Planned for too?

Rather than talk about angels and pinheads, let's look at what the Bible says, hm?

8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2:12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

I think the above is pretty clear: no, God has already stacked the deck. If you're meant to be saved, God will call you personally, if you're doomed to be damned, God himself inspired your disbelief.

Now, you can get back to asking whether a mute oracle, who knows all but tells nothing, affects free will. It just isn't the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, just wanted to make that clear.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Yes it is.

You can't pick Y. It's impossible for you to do so. Your hands are tied.

No, they're not. I'm looking down at my hands. They're not tied, and all of X, Y, and Z are available for my selection.

The fact that I will choose to pick X has no effect on my capacity to choose to pick Y or Z, just as the fact that I will choose to eat turkey today has no effect on my capacity to eat chicken or pork.

 

[mutile]

I kind of agree with AvalonXQ here - up to a point. An observer of a choice does not affect that choice, even if the observer knows what choice will be made.

However, the Christian God is not a mere observer. Generally, whatever God wills comes to pass. God determines events.

Pharaoh did not use free will when he refused to let the Israelites free. God had hardened his heart. Does God make some things happen and not others?

God makes everything happen, he is the creator and the first cause, he designed man in a specific way to lead to a specific outcome. Arguing that this God does not interfere is like shooting someone and blaming the bullet.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yes, and theoretically my car could take any turn, but nevertheless, if it can't actually decide to take me to the doctor instead of to work, then it has no free will on the matter. Or a Roomba certainly has the capability to clean another house too, but if there is no way for it to actually decide to go there, and be able to go there, then it has no free will on the matter,

And generally if I can predict that the Roomba will be in place X at time Y, then there is PREDESTINATION. It doesn't matter how much you can handwave around whether it still has free will or not. Then the more important point, the whole thing that the "free will" was supposed to counter, is just that: PREDESTINATION.

Especially when you throw omniscience in. If I know that my Roomba at 10:45 PM will trip a light sensor, which will cause a door to swing open, and the door will snag a cable and cause a fire -- not just that it MIGHT do that, but that predictably, executing the program with the data and room configuration it has in its memory, it WILL do that -- I am responsible if I let it happen. Then I don't even have the excuse that I just wanted to see if it would really do that, because I know it will do that.

There is a reason why something being obvious or fairly predictable by a person of average intellect is brought up in court cases. You can be off the hook at least criminally if you can't know if your supermarket roof will collapse and squash everyone inside. E.g., because it only happened in an earthquake you couldn't possibly predict. But if you knew it will collapse within an hour (e.g., because the roof already started to crack and things are going worse by the minute) and you didn't get the people out, you ARE responsible.

That is the problem that "free will" was supposed to work around. If people have the free will to do something unpredictable, and which God can't reliably predict, then he's off the hook about a lot of stuff. But if you sneak predestination right in the back door, then, again: "free will" becomes fully irrelevant. What is important then is that everything is predestined to happen, and God knows exactly what will happen and when. Then "free will" just isn't an excuse, or even relevant, any more.

 

[Good Lt]

No, they're not. I'm looking down at my hands. They're not tied, and all of X, Y, and Z are available for my selection

No, they aren't.

The only choice you are able to make is the one that's been selected for you as part of the plan.

The plan that began in the beginning of time that you have no power to change or to alter.

Your choice has been made already. It's been assigned to you.

 

[AdMan]

If an omniscient god created the universe, he knew exactly what would happen with everything in the universe when he did. He knew and knows every choice that every sentient being would and will make until the end of time--it's as if everything is written in stone and cannot be changed.

There is simply no way to reconcile free will with that idea--with an omniscient god, free will is only an illusion.

 

[tsig]

When it comes to what Avalon is saying in this thread's OP, I would think a good analogy in support of his version of free will would be that if you could somehow go back in time before someone chooses something, and you know what they are choosing, they would still be freely choosing.

.

When you have to posit impossible conditions you might want to rethink your argument.

 

[tsig]

Or... the blind guy had every choice, and God knew he would end up there anyway. Just like I would if I came from the future.

When time travel becomes possible your argument would have merit.

 

[Halfcentaur]

When you have to posit impossible conditions you might want to rethink your argument.

Yeah, playing devil's advocate is for wussies. What was I thinking, trying to accurately portray an argument I disagree with?

 

[Aridas]

So, since you've been active, but not replied to me, AvalonXQ, I'm mildly wondering if you're intentionally or not intentionally ignoring me.

So, I'm going to mostly requote my first post and see if you actually reply, this time.

Either way, AvalonXQ is fighting a straw man. It's not that knowledge of events has any effect on Free Will, it's the nature of reality that won't allow them to co-exist. Or, to put it a different way, having Omniscience in no way takes away Free Will. In that case, Free Will simply never existed, just the illusion of it.

...

This is assuming that the Omniscience is in the same plane-equivalent. When you postulate different planes involved, things get more complex. In the end, though, interaction between a plane that allows Free Will and a plane that allows something that can be called Omniscience will end up nullifying one or the other.

...

So, the crux of the matter, then, before any argument is presented... Do you consider a physical reality that there was only one path that you ever actually could make to be a valid constraint? What about a physical reality that allowed for more than one potential path, but that did not allow any conscious effect on the forces deciding the path?

Either way, I tend to use, as a rule of thumb for a minimum version of Free Will that is in any way reasonable to use when dealing with a moral Free Will, as is usually the actual issue at hand, "a person must be able to consciously affect which one of multiple potentially selectable options is selected, with at least some knowledge of the consequences and ability to comprehend the consequences that will result, before making a decision."

So, AvalonXQ, if you don't answer, I'm going to assume that you're not honestly interested in the topic, just in fighting some common misrepresentations of the issue and thus attempting to support your faith, despite not getting to the heart of the matter, and thus obfuscating it, and be done with it, with regards to you.

 

[tsig]

When it comes to what Avalon is saying in this thread's OP, I would think a good analogy in support of his version of free will would be that if you could somehow go back in time before someone chooses something, and you know what they are choosing, they would still be freely choosing.

If I went back in time to kill Hitler before a point in his career for instance, all things considered if they happened the same way, he would make the same free choice.

What Avalon seems to reconcile with here is that God not only is merely aware of the future, he created everything in the first place, set up the rules, and set it off in motion himself. That makes a difference to other people, but not Avalon it seems.

Yeah, playing devil's advocate is for wussies. What was I thinking, trying to accurately portray an argument I disagree with?

Looks more like apologetics than devils' advocacy.

 

[AdMan]

I don't think this question has been raised in the thread yet, but would an omniscient god himself have free will? He already knows everything he is going to do, such as create the universe--could he then decide to do something different, like choose not to create the universe? No, because then he was not truly omniscient. But if he can't, then he doesn't have free will and he's not omnipotent.

The whole concept collapses like a house of cards.

 

[Good Lt]

I don't think this question has been raised in the thread yet, but would an omniscient god himself have free will? He already knows everything he is going to do, such as create the universe--could he then decide to do something different, like choose not to create the universe? No, because then he was not truly omniscient. But if he can't, then he doesn't have free will and he's not omnipotent.

The whole concept collapses like a house of cards.

I imagine their answer would be a lot like their answer to "if all things had to be created, what created the creator?"

That is, a special plea that "God need not worry about things like that because he's God and the rules don't apply to God."

 

[AdMan]

I imagine their answer would be a lot like their answer to "if all things had to be created, what created the creator?"

That is, a special plea that "God need not worry about things like that because he's God and the rules don't apply to God."

I expect you're right, which is why I think trying to argue that capital-G (omniscient, omnipotent) God exists or even can exist through logic makes absolutely no sense. There always has to be special pleading.

 

[Pulvinar]

No, they're not. I'm looking down at my hands. They're not tied, and all of X, Y, and Z are available for my selection.

The fact that I will choose to pick X has no effect on my capacity to choose to pick Y or Z, just as the fact that I will choose to eat turkey today has no effect on my capacity to eat chicken or pork.

Using your logic, a computer has free will. For example, it's free to choose to either jump to a new instruction or not, depending on conditions and its rules. The programmer will know just which way it will jump in any specific case. Does that make programmers demigods?

If you reexamine every statement about free will in this thread, you'll find that it's always free in the general case (where there's at least one unknown), but not free in the specific case. That's when you're not free to choose anything other than what you want at that moment.

 

[baron]

I don't believe in free will or god. Free will is a useful social construct but, much like god, by any objective measure it can't be said to exist.

 

[edge]

Using your logic, a computer has free will. For example, it's free to choose to either jump to a new instruction or not, depending on conditions and its rules. The programmer will know just which way it will jump in any specific case. Does that make programmers demigods?

If you reexamine every statement about free will in this thread, you'll find that it's always free in the general case (where there's at least one unknown), but not free in the specific case. That's when you're not free to choose anything other than what you want at that moment.

Good analogy Pulvinar.
Predestination ended 2000 years-ago at the moment of Jesus' sacrifice and glory and then true freewill started.
Simply said by Jesus, I have come so that all can or have the opportunity to be saved through faith. Then comes the question, "But if he wishes it to be so, why does he not make it so?
This is why God is hiding and we have to have faith to preserve freewill.
He wants your choice from your heart. Anything else would be robotic and meaningless.
If you have faith then little bits are shown to believers to keep them in the Christian faith.
"God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."-1 Timothy 2:3, 4.

 

[Pulvinar]

Good analogy Pulvinar.

Well thank you, though I have a good feeling that you didn't understand it.

 

[dafydd]

Good analogy Pulvinar.
Predestination ended 2000 years-ago at the moment of Jesus' sacrifice and glory and then true freewill started.
Simply said by Jesus, I have come so that all can or have the opportunity to be saved through faith. Then comes the question, "But if he wishes it to be so, why does he not make it so?
This is why God is hiding and we have to have faith to preserve freewill.
He wants your choice from your heart. Anything else would be robotic and meaningless.
If you have faith then little bits are shown to believers to keep them in the Christian faith.
"God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."-1 Timothy 2:3, 4.

Kin ah git an ay-men!!!

 

[HansMustermann]

Looks more like apologetics than devils' advocacy.

Not really. He's illustrating a valid point.

History is only fixed for us, because it's already in the past and we can't go back to take a different decision. But it doesn't mean it was a fixed outcome back then. Avalon's argument is basically a textbook case of begging the question, in that he already assumes that in a universe with free will the two would be the same. And actually they're only the same in a universe without free will.

In fact, it's an even bigger nonsense, because to work that way, you'd also need determinism and predestination at quantum level too.

E.g., let's say I go to my supervillain lair and hop into my time machine and go back to 1817 or so to buy some land in Russia. Should I worry about a bolshevik revolution a hundred years later confiscating my land?

It only works that way if the outcomes are already pre-determined in 1817. I.e., if the universe works fully deterministic and with full predestination.

And, again, not just in brain processes, but even at quantum level. To have that kind of possibility to know in 1817 if there will be a revolution in 1917, you literally need to say that quantum mechanics is bogus.

Because you know what was a factor in the low popular morale there? The prince's haemophilia. And it was also the #1 factor in the influence in court that Rasputin was getting.

But that haemophilia is due to a genetic mutation which happened in the one sperm cell that won the race and resulted in Queen Victoria. It's one single DNA break that was repaired wrong.

To have the certainty in 1817 that everything would run the same time in every possible re-run from there, you'd have to have the certitude that every single time the same atom, in the same cell that won't even exist for another year, would be knocked out in the same way. Plus a bunch of stuff based on brownian motion and potential wells -- i.e., more quantum stuff -- responsible for everything from the DNA repair not working there, to even that that cell existed in the first place.

It only takes one wavefunction collapsing differently, for history to go vastly differently from mid-19'th century onwards.

I.e., again, forget the brain and free will. To even be able to claim that anyone has that kind of knowledge, one has to flat out proclaim quantum mechanics to be fundamentally false. And, hey, let's see the data then.