For a statement about my future to be true or false before the fact seems to preclude my being able to contradict this "before the fact" value. Does it not?

No. There is a subtle error being made.

See: Notes on Free Will and Determinism - Prof. Norman Swartz

Objections to Proposal One: (1) When did it 'become true' that Bush won the 1988 election? When the votes were counted? When it was clear that he would win? When 'the deciding vote' was cast? (2) When did Germany lose World War Two? When the Allies' invasion force landed on the beaches of Normandy? When the British invented and were able to use radar against the German Luftwaffe? When Alan Turing and his team broke the German secret code? When ...? (3) Is it not true now that tomorrow copper will conduct electricity?

The questions in the preceding paragraph strongly suggest that it will prove problematic in the extreme to try to put precise times on the (supposed) occurrence of a proposition's 'becoming true'. Moreover, propositions, you'll recall, are supposed to be abstract entities, entities which do not exist in space and time; but if they do not exist in time, how can their properties change at some particular time?

Another Objection to Proposal One: To argue that propositions about the future acquire a truth-value only when the described event occurs (i.e. in the future) will entail abandoning the law of the excluded middle: propositions about the future will not, then, have truth-values now, i.e. prior to the occurrence of the predicted event. Adopting Proposal One would require our creating a far more complicated logic. This is not to say that this proposed solution is completely without merit; but it is to say that we ought to try to find some other solution before resorting to such a major revision of logic.

Firstly, the only reason to reject bivalence is if you want to proclaim that we do indeed have free will. Why? Because if a statement is true before the fact this means that one's actions do not dictate the truth of the statement but the the truth of the statement dictates the actions.

No it doesn't mean that.

Please see the link I just posted.

yes, but until you did.....it was not true or false......if it was, then the truth or falsity was not in your control but was assigned before the fact thought you did know the value beforehand.

I'm arguing that the value beforehand was null.
and only became true or false upon you actually doing it.

just to clarify K, are you arguing that the statement had a value of either true or false before the fact?

Yes, I do. I am not arguing it. I am stating it. If it was not true or false I had vanilla ice-cream on April 11, 2010 before I decided to do so, then why was it true that the Sun rose on April 11, 2010 before it did so? Or don't you think that it was?

Whether or not the truth or falsity of a statement is not in my control (whatever that means) what has that to do with whether or not it is true or false, anyway?

Because the sun doesn't have free will! That's the difference...the sun is being governed by determinism, you aren't

---------- Post added 04-12-2010 at 03:17 PM ----------

well if it's not in your control then that means you are destined to comply with the truth or falsity of the before-the-fact value. If statement A is true, even if you knew that and wanted to spite it, you couldn't.

"The truth or falsity of Lincoln was assassinated is not in my control but, so what? It is still true."

Yeah...and? how is this relevant, we're(well I am) talking specifically about future contingents?

I thought that you were arguing that because the truth of a statement is not in my control, that it is not true. Aren't you?

What does "destined to comply with truth or falsity" mean?

It is true that if I will choose vanilla tomorrow, then I will choose vanilla tomorrow. But that is no more than a trivial tautology. It doesn't mean that I am destined (fated) to choose vanilla tomorrow. I can decide on chocolate tomorrow. Have you any reason to think I won't be able to decide on chocolate tomorrow if I want to?

I am arguing that propositions about future events in regards to free will are neither true nor false before the fact; they are null.




"destined to comply with truth or falsity" means that if the proposition "You will wear a green shirt tomorrow" is true, then even if someone told you this fact and offered you 2million dollars to wear a blue shirt, you couldn't do it.

that statement is true because of the way you worded it........you made it an IF....THEN statement

That statement is not the same as saying "I will choose Vanilla tomorrow"
According to the principle of bivalence that statement, I WILL choose vanilla tomorrow, is, RIGHT NOW, true or it's false and there's nothing you can do about it......even if you knew which it was, you couldn't do the opposite.

I think you are confusing:

1. It is necessarily true that if I have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow, then I will have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow, with:

2. If I have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow, then it is necessarily true that I will have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow.

A. 1, and 2 are different statements
B. 1 is true, 2 is false.
C. 2 does not follow from 1

The confusion between 1 and 2, or thinking that 2 follows from 1, is called, the modal fallacy.

Committing that fallacy is the main cause of views like yours.

That it is true right now that I will have vanilla ice-cream is due to the fact that I will decide to have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow. On the other hand, of course if I don't decide to have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow, is that it is not true right now that I will have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow. So, whether it is true right now that I have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow or it isn't, depends on what I decide tomorrow. Now, you don't know what I will decide tomorrow, but so what, whatever I will do, I will do. (Trivial tautology). But what you or I know today has nothing to do with what I will do tomorrow.

it is for these reasons that I reject that propositions about future contingents of free willed beings are true or false before the fact.

It is only after the fact that the truth or falsity of the statement can be assessed.

---------- Post added 04-12-2010 at 03:42 PM ----------

Statement 2. Says IF i have vanilla ice cream tomorrow, then it is necessarily true that I will have vanilla ice cream tomorrow...
I'm confused because if the premise is true then the conclusion must follow. No?

How can I have vanilla ice-cream tomorrow and not have had vanilla ice cream tomorrow?

---------- Post added 04-12-2010 at 03:45 PM ----------

upon re-reading it I see the distincition now....I don't have problem with that....

What I have a problem with is that making a statement "I will do X tomorrow" and saying that that is either true or false right now.

if then statements are completely different because they are contingent by nature.

---------- Post added 04-12-2010 at 03:47 PM ----------

It is positive propositions involving future choices where the issue that I'm raising lies.

Yes, I know that. But I think that your problem is a pseudo-problem, since that it is true right now that I will do X tomorrow does not mean that it is necessarily true that I will do X tomorrow. It just means that necessarily if I do X tomorrow, then I will do X tomorrow. You are still confusing the first with the second. Once you don't confuse the two, the problem will simply vanish. Maybe if you substitute "must" for "necessarily" you will see it more clearly.

It must be that if I do X tomorrow, then I will do X tomorrow. (trivial tautology).

But does that mean that if I do X tomorrow that I must do X tomorrow so that I have no choice in the matter? Of course not!

So If I say "I will wear a blue shirt tomorrow" Then that statement is true right now.....or it's false right now.......it's not contingent upon anything.

It's contingent upon whether or not you wear blue.

If by the statement "I WILL do X tomorrow" you actually mean "Necessarily, if I do X tomorrow, then I will do X tomorrow", well then yeah.






Supposedly ANY statement must be true or false at the moment it's stated.

But what does that mean? What does that "must" mean? Why must it be?

Do you mean:

1. It must be that every statement is true or false?

or do you mean.

2. For every statement the statement must be true, or it must be false?

Bi-valence says 1. It does not say, 2.

Thus, if the principle of bivalence applies to all propositions, then free will cannot exist. But if we think that free will exists, then the principle of bivalence is not universally applicable.

the value supposedly exists before the fact......meaning even if I knew the value I couldn't change it.

The value reflects all decisions you make, even those you would make after knowing the value. If I really could tell you what color shirt you will wear tomorrow, when tomorrow comes it wouldn't be somehow forced upon you to do so but instead it would turn out somehow that you have decided to wear blue anyways. Even if you decided beforehand not to wear whatever color I tell you that you're going to wear, you'd freely change your mind and decide to wear it anyways.

if the value is written in stone before the fact.....then this implies a lack of free will on my part; it's as simple as that. How can it not?

If by written in stone you mean necessarily true then no, it's only contingently true that you will wear blue tomorrow, contingent on whatever you decide to do of course but in this case what you will decide to do is wear blue.

Two admirals, A and B, are preparing their navies for a sea battle tomorrow. The battle will be fought until one side is victorious. But the 'laws' of the excluded middle (every statement is either true or false) and of noncontradiction (no statement is both true and false), require that one of the statements, 'A wins' and 'B wins', is true and the other is false.

Suppose 'A wins' is (today) true. Then whatever A does (or fails to do) today will make no difference; similarly, whatever B does (or fails to do) today will make no difference: the outcome is already settled. Or again, suppose 'A wins' is (today) false. Then no matter what A does today (or fails to do), it will make no difference; similarly, no matter what B does (or fails to do), it will make no difference: the outcome is already settled. Thus, if every statement is either true or false (and not both), then planning, or as Aristotle put it 'taking care', is illusory in its efficacy. The future will be what it will be, irrespective of our planning, intentions, etc.