Free will and omniscience

[AvalonXQ]

I want to touch on the issue of the Bayesian model a little more.

The Bayesian probability model conflates actual probability with perspective-specific probability, assigning values to both.

As an example, let's say that I, without looking, randomly draw a ball from a bag containing three red balls and one blue ball, and place it under a hat.

It's now sitting there under the hat. What is the probability that the ball is blue?

Well, using the Bayesian model, we state the probability as being 1/4.

I lift up the hat, and see the blue ball. Now the probability of the ball being blue is 1.

And yet, if Myriad is out of the room and hasn't seen the ball yet, he might still say the probability is 1/4.

Nothing changed about the ball to change the probability from 1/4 to 1; what changed is my knowledge. The ball was always blue; that fact just changed from uncertain to certain with an additional observation.

The important point is that the true probability and the known (Bayesian) probability are not the same.

Now, in all real-world applications we can think of, any event with a Bayesian probability of 1 also has an actual probability of 1. However, allowing for atemporal perspective or another mechanism for omniscience that is not based on mechanical determinacy, this is not necessarily the case.

Let's say I, the Oracle, flip a coin. While the coin is in the air, I make the following two statements:
1) The coin has a 50% chance of landing tails.
2) The coin will land heads.

These two statements are only incompatible if we believe that knowledge (that is, Bayesian probability) automatically usurps true probability. It doesn't, and in fact I claim the statements are compatible.

Hence, the following statements by the Oracle are logically consistent:
1) Avalon has the capacity to select any of X, Y, or Z.
2) Avalon will select X.

 

[Myriad]

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.

Okay, fair enough. I'll think about this more from here. For now, I'll just note that the point I raised has nothing in particular to do with free will. The premise or non-premise G -> ~P(~n) applies to all omniscient knowledge that can be expressed in boolean terms. For instance, our omniscient being might know/predict that asteroid A will collide with asteroid B on their next close orbital pass. If we don't accept (and cannot prove) that G -> ~P(~n), then we're claiming that there is a possibility that the asteroids might miss instead; that is, that the omniscient being is simply wrong about a purely deterministic prediction.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Aridas]

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?

*headbang*

This is pathetically painful. I'd have joined in, if I didn't think that AvalonXQ had me on ignore, after he ignored me dealing with these exact questions on the very first page.

Avalon's position is a straw man. He keeps on harping on how knowledge doesn't take away Free Will. It doesn't, after all, but that's never been the actual issue at hand. It's actually irrelevant, except in what it implies about the nature of reality.

 

[AvalonXQ]

I don't have anyone on ignore.

 

[GeeMack]

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.

Again, in the spirit of helping you understand your persistent failure to support your position, your contention is wrong. And it's wrong because knowing something will happen means exactly that. Omniscience, knowing that something will happen, means it will happen, so it certainly does negate any potential that it could happen or not. The problem is that you're trying to define omniscience to include both notions, knowing something will happen and allowing that it may or may not happen. And that's wrong. When you understand that, you'll understand your failure.

 

[dafydd]

Again, in the spirit of helping you understand your persistent failure to support your position, your contention is wrong. And it's wrong because knowing something will happen means exactly that. Omniscience, knowing that something will happen, means it will happen, so it certainly does negate any potential that it could happen or not. The problem is that you're trying to define omniscience to include both notions, knowing something will happen and allowing that it may or may not happen. And that's wrong. When you understand that, you'll understand your failure.

True. Omniscience would mean that you knew when and where something would happen and it would happen. There is no chance of it not happening.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

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.

Why can't it be that the actions you take or the choices you make determine what is written in the book, and hence, your free will is intact?

 

[AvalonXQ]

Why can't it be that the actions you take or the choices you make determine what is written in the book, and hence, your free will is intact?

^ This

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

Again, in the spirit of helping you understand your persistent failure to support your position, your contention is wrong. And it's wrong because knowing something will happen means exactly that. Omniscience, knowing that something will happen, means it will happen, so it certainly does negate any potential that it could happen or not. The problem is that you're trying to define omniscience to include both notions, knowing something will happen and allowing that it may or may not happen. And that's wrong. When you understand that, you'll understand your failure.

You analyze omniscience as if the omniscient being knows things in chronological order, but that is a direct contradiction of the commonly understood idea of omniscience. You need to analyze from the correct definition that the omniscient being knows all things at all times.
Only then will you understand that an omniscient being knows that a thing happens because the thing does happen, regardless of the time frame of its happening.
You will also see, then, that omniscience does not preclude free will.

 

[Tony]

Why can't it be that the actions you take or the choices you make determine what is written in the book, and hence, your free will is intact?

Because, if the choices and actions are written before they are chosen or acted out, they cease being choices and actions and become a script. As has been explained to you guys many times before. If I know with absolute certainty that you are going to have steak for dinner on October 15, 2034, you have no choice but to have steak for dinner on October 15, 2034.

 

[Tony]

^ This

...is wrong.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Because, if the choices and actions are written before they are chosen or acted out, they cease being choices and actions and become a script. As has been explained to you guys many times before. If I know with absolute certainty that you are going to have steak for dinner on October 15, 2034, you have no choice but to have steak for dinner on October 15, 2034.

Not if the only reason that you wrote that is because I will choose it.

Fact 1: I will choose to have a steak on 15 Oct 2034.

Fact 2: Because I will make that choice, you will describe that choice on 31 May 2012.

Problem?

 

[Tony]

Not if the only reason that you wrote that is because I will choose it.

You aren't choosing it if it is pre-written.

Fact 1: I will choose to have a steak on 15 Oct 2034.

Fact 2: Because I will make that choice, you will describe that choice on 31 May 2012.

Problem?

The problem is that it is not a choice. You are merely following the script I have written.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

You aren't choosing it if it is pre-written.

The problem is that it is not a choice. You are merely following the script I have written.

No, isn't it more reasonable that you, as an omniscient being, are writing the script according to my actions.

 

[AvalonXQ]

The problem is that it is not a choice. You are merely following the script I have written.

You keep saying that, but you don't provide any evidence that it's true.

Again, I claim that you wrote it because I chose it. By what necessary fact do you negate this claim?

 

[Belz...]

Not if the only reason that you wrote that is because I will choose it.

Fact 1: I will choose to have a steak on 15 Oct 2034.

Fact 2: Because I will make that choice, you will describe that choice on 31 May 2012.

Problem?

Yes, problem.

Your "choice" is still the only possibility. And the only reason why you're arguing otherwise is because of your religious beliefs.

 

[Belz...]

No, isn't it more reasonable that you, as an omniscient being, are writing the script according to my actions.

What difference does that make ? The script is written before you're even born.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Your "choice" is still the only possibility.

My choice is one of many possibilities.

No response to my Bayesian discussion, or reaction to Myriad's quite excellent effort towards formalizing the issue?

 

[Tony]

No, isn't it more reasonable that you, as an omniscient being, are writing the script according to my actions.

What actions? You don't exist to make any actions. You won't exist for 10 trillion years and I know everything you're going to do. So no, it isn't reasonable. It would only be reasonable if I was writing the script according to your actions after you've already made them.

 

[AvalonXQ]

What actions? You don't exist to make any actions.

Sure I do.

We're talking atemporal beings here.