Is omniscience compatible with human freedom?

@Khethil,

Khethil;107297 wrote:

Aye, though you take my rather rough example a bit too literally, it's used to illustrate the possibility. But you're quite right, and I believe we're on the same page.

Thanks

What is wrong with taking example literally? How else should be take them?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107301 wrote:

What is wrong with taking example literally? How else should be take them?

... as a representative illustration of the concepts discussed. In this case, whether or not it is possible to know, beforehand, how someone might choose. Knowing isn't the same as dictating or forcing; thus, freedom to choose isn't affected.

@Khethil,

Khethil;107303 wrote:

... as a representative illustration of the concepts discussed. In this case, whether or not it is possible to know, beforehand, how someone might choose. Knowing isn't the same as dictating or forcing; thus, freedom to choose isn't affected.

I agree that knowing is not forcing. But what has that to do with taking things literally?

@kennethamy,

fast wrote:

Well, we can be mighty confident that your son will do exactly as God says he will do.

Why? Isn't it feasible that God has lied to us? His infallible knowing doesn't necessitate that he tells us the truth, does it?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;107313 wrote:

Why? Isn't it feasible that God has lied to us? His infallible knowing doesn't necessitate that he tells us the truth, does it?

If God is all-good, then God does not lie. But it seems to me that is irrelevant. Whatever God knows someone will do, he will do. If he did not do it, then God would not know he would do. No one, including God knows anything that is false.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107315 wrote:

If God is all-good, then God does not lie. But it seems to me that is irrelevant. Whatever God knows someone will do, he will do. If he did not do it, then God would not know he would do. No one, including God knows anything that is false.

Right. But he said "as God says...", so I was just curious. I can see how it's a bit irrelevant.

As I asked before, how would you like to continue this conversation?

@Zetherin,

[QUOTE=Zetherin;107317]Right. But he said "as God says...", so I was just curious. I can see how it's a bit irrelevant.[/QUOTE]Well, I did say, "Suppose God tells you that next year on February 11th, your son will eat a snickers bar," and it was for illustrative purposes, but yes, I could have spent a little more time with it and worded it differently.

I do inadvertently slip in some irrelevancies sometimes.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;107317 wrote:

Right. But he said "as God says...", so I was just curious. I can see how it's a bit irrelevant.

As I asked before, how would you like to continue this conversation?

But God's lying is really not the point, is it. The point is whether if God knows what you will do, must you do it. The answer is no. But if the question is whether if God knows what you will do, will you do it, the answer is unquestionably, yes. The puzzling question is whether if God is certain about what you will do, must you do it.

@kennethamy,

Take god out of the equation. What if you went to bed tonight and you dreamed the winner of the 3.30 at cheltenham. Coincidence you might say, now you continue to dream the future in great detail. If you are convinced you are dreaming the future does that make you omniscient ? does it give you these godlike characteristics ? do the same problems arise that you bestowed on god ? knowing is not controlling, it only makes you aware of the inevitability of the future. The script is written but you wrote it. No one can alter the script, its your free will that has allowed you to write it. The problem for humans, time runs only one way and their conception of time and its consequences are blinkered by its view of time. If you could stand back and view time as a landscape the picture would be clearer.

I can remember as a youth we would enter the cinema at odd times and the film might have been running for sometime. We would settle down and watch it from when we entered. It would end and we would wait for it to restart, when it had got the point we entered the cinema, we would leave. The film was a story and the story did not change because we saw the end before the begining.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

The point is whether if God knows what you will do, must you do it. The answer is no.

If God's knowing is certain, as God's knowing is infallible, how is this a no? I must do what God knows, as what he knows is certain. And with this logic, the answer to your question here:

Quote:

The puzzling question is whether if God is certain about what you will do, must you do it.

is yes.

fast wrote:

I do inadvertently slip in some irrelevancies sometimes.

I actually meant I slipped into an irrelevance.

@Zetherin,

I think one can argue either side. To allow for free will in the face of omniscience one must conceive of God as powerful enough to create such choice against the apparent contradiction of foreknowledge. But what do we mean by free will? Should we not consider that man is an organism of instinct?

Free will arguably hinges on the idea of something like an immaterial soul. One could also assert that the brain is an analog computer that somehow allows for "free will."

I think "free will" is a difficult, questionable concept. It exists to justify punishment and reward. I think it's best described as a superstition.

As always, opinions...

@Reconstructo,

I see it more like steering a boat. You dont choose the boat or the weather...or the crew. We are masters of a determined journey.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;107334 wrote:

I think "free will" is a difficult, questionable concept. It exists to justify punishment and reward. I think it's best described as a superstition.

As always, opinions...

I think free will even if an "illusion" is an almost universal and necessary assumption in the process of human experience.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;107328 wrote:

If God's knowing is certain, as God's knowing is infallible, how is this a no? I must do what God knows, as what he knows is certain. And with this logic, the answer to your question here:

is yes.

.

Does, "must I do it" mean that I am compelled to do it (if God is certain that I will)?

@prothero,

I agree. I think it's socially necessary. Just as I think Sartre's ethic is noble, so is the responsibility foisted upon us by this "illusion" "free will."

Man couldn't live a day without what critical thinking might describe as his "lies."

Long live the lies that light life!

@prothero,

prothero;107337 wrote:

I think free will even if an "illusion" is an almost universal and necessary assumption in the process of human experience.

But even if it is true that free will is an illusion, that is decidedly not what we experience. What we experience is that sometimes we can do as we please.

@kennethamy,

Indeed, "free will" is a fair description of what one could call the pleasure or burden of choice. "Free will" is "existentially" true.

Smile

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;107339 wrote:

Does, "must I do it" mean that I am compelled to do it (if God is certain that I will)?

No. Whether you're compelled or not has nothing to do with the fact that you must do what God knows you are going to do. God simply knows all your actions, whether you were compelled to do them or not.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;107348 wrote:

No. Whether you're comepelled or not has nothing to do with the fact that you must do what God knows you are going to do. God simply knows all your actions, whether you were compelled to do them or not.

If I not compelled to do what God is certain I will do, then in what sense must I do it?

If God is certain that I will do X, then I will do X, without doubt. But that does not mean that if God is certain that I will do X, then I am forced to do X. And if I am not forced to do X, then in what sense was my doing X not free? Why could it not be that God is certain that I would freely do X?

@kennethamy,

I meant that God can be certain about those things you freely do, and also be certain about those things you are compelled to do. You asked if being compelled meant the same thing as "must do" in the sense that one must do what God knows, and I don't think this is the case. Because, as I said, God could be certain of something you freely did.

I'm conceptualizing God's infallible knowing as not having a direct influence. It is simply the map, the road map for all actions. His infallible knowing isn't compelling anyone, it is simply illustrating every action, regardless how it comes to be.

I don't really know how to answer your questions in any other way at the current moment.

---------- Post added 12-01-2009 at 04:17 PM ----------

Quote:

But even if it is true that free will is an illusion, that is decidedly not what we experience. What we experience is that sometimes we can do as we please.

I think this is true.

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Is omniscience compatible with human freedom?

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