Free will and omniscience

[AvalonXQ]

I think the typical problem people have in reconciling these two concepts is that they have an idea in their head of how omniscience works and there's no reason to believe it actually works that way.

Omniscience isn't conceptually any different than considering the past from the viewpoint of the present. Our current knowledge of past decisions don't constrain their freedom; neither does the knowledge of an atemporal being do so.

 

[GeeMack]

It does if the "choice" you made was pre-determined, and if it was already known it would have to be.

You can't have it both ways Avalon.

But Christians can have it both ways. They must have it both ways. It's how they reconcile reality with their fantasy world where reciting incantations causes omnipotent beings to change the course of nature. It's the only way this kind of nonsense can seem rational...

God knows you will pick X.

You can still pick not-X.

You will pick X, but nothing forces you to.

Gibberish.

 

[joobz]

I think the typical problem people have in reconciling these two concepts is that they have an idea in their head of how omniscience works and there's no reason to believe it actually works that way.

Omniscience isn't conceptually any different than considering the past from the viewpoint of the present. Our current knowledge of past decisions don't constrain their freedom; neither does the knowledge of an atemporal being do so.

Past events have no freedom, as they are already done.

If you can know future events, those events are also set in stone.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

If your god is Azathoth, who made the gods and forever rested, the blind, mad god, amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes, then sure.

But I hear your god likes to **** with people.

The past we can't change. The present, and future, God influences all the time, in a thousand ways. This world, this present, is the one He built. The one He wants. So He should be held least partly responsible for everything happening on it.

 

[Good Lt]

I think the typical problem people have in reconciling these two concepts is that they have an idea in their head of how omniscience works and there's no reason to believe it actually works that way.

There's no reason to believe in the existence, let alone omniscience, of an invisible sky being from the Bronze age, either, but believers seem unable and/or unwilling to reconcile that with objective reality.

Omniscience isn't conceptually any different than considering the past from the viewpoint of the present. Our current knowledge of past decisions don't constrain their freedom; neither does the knowledge of an atemporal being do so.

Is there an outcome the god of your religion does not know will come to pass?

Is there any decision an individual can make that the god of your religion didn't predict would be made?

If the answer is no to both, then there is no such thing as free will.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Is there any decision an individual can make that the god of your religion didn't predict would be made?

If the answer is no to both, then there is no such thing as free will.

The definition of free will is a lack of constraint on my ability to make a decision, not a lack of knowledge as to what the decision will be.

My will can be free even if a being knows what choice I will make.

Azathoth is my favorite Old One to draw in Arkham Horror, BTW. Let's me focus on the main game rather than the boss fight.

 

[Good Lt]

My will can be free even if a being knows what choice I will make.

How is that free? If the being knows what you're going to do, you're predestined to do it. There is nothing you can do to make it otherwise.

That's not freedom or free will. That's predestination.

That being, by extension, is also responsible for your actions in some way. It had to be thus, because it's part of the being's plan. And the plan cannot be changed, because it's been planned all along.

 

[Aridas]

Past events have no freedom, as they are already done.

If you can know future events, those events are also set in stone.

Pretty much. Unless something's arbitrarily altered by the postulated force or forces outside 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.

ETA:

Just because... This is assuming that the Omniscience is in the same plane-equivalent. When you postulate different dimensions 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.


ETA again:

The definition of free will is a lack of constraint on my ability to make a decision, not a lack of knowledge as to what the decision will be.

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."

 

[Tricky]

You can still pick not-X.

You will pick X, but nothing forces you to.

These two statements are mutually contradictory. If it is certain that you will pick X, then you cannot pick not-X. Because if you could, then God would not be omniscient.

It is simple logic. Here are two statements.

1) Someone knows with 100% certainty what you will do.
2) You can do something other that what that someone knows.

If statement 1 is true, then you cannot do something other that what that someone knows with 100% certainty.
If statement 2 is true, then that someone did not have 100% certainty.

There is no possible way both statements can be true.

 

[tsig]

These two statements are mutually contradictory. If it is certain that you will pick X, then you cannot pick not-X. Because if you could, then God would not be omniscient.

It is simple logic. Here are two statements.

1) Someone knows with 100% certainty what you will do.
2) You can do something other that what that someone knows.

If statement 1 is true, then you cannot do something other that what that someone knows with 100% certainty.
If statement 2 is true, then that someone did not have 100% certainty.

There is no possible way both statements can be true.

This will be very short thread.

 

[Brian-M]

I don't see the conflict between free will and omniscience.
But then, I think of free will as a deterministic process.

So if some entity can calculate what decision I will arrive at before I arrive at that decision, without actually influencing my decision-making process in any way, then my free will has not being impinged upon.

 

[Aridas]

I don't see the conflict between free will and omniscience.
But then, I think of free will as a deterministic process.

So if some entity can calculate what decision I will arrive at before I arrive at that decision, without actually influencing my decision-making process in any way, then my free will has not being impinged upon.

I suspected that you'd pop up. Either way, concept that you're dealing with isn't the same as the one that most of the rest of us are. In short, you're dealing with freedom from outside coercion. We're dealing with freedom to influence the outcome.

Given the context that this issue tends to arise in, the latter is usually the relevant one. In short, believers, for the purpose of this example, Christians, attempting to argue for things like how it's in any way moral for "God" to send people to hell and still be able to claim that their God is omniscient and good. Or, in short, to shift the blame from "God" to man. This is hardly the only situation that it arises, of course, but it's likely the most common.

 

[tsig]

I don't see the conflict between free will and omniscience.
But then, I think of free will as a deterministic process.

So if some entity can calculate what decision I will arrive at before I arrive at that decision, without actually influencing my decision-making process in any way, then my free will has not being impinged upon.

The entity knows what you're going to do so your decision making process is an illusion.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Past events have no freedom, as they are already done.

If you can know future events, those events are also set in stone.

And before someone says it, Being able to change said future event and not doing so with knowledge said events may kill hundreds of thousands makes you evil.

 

[Brian-M]

The entity knows what you're going to do so your decision making process is an illusion.

Even though the decision making process would come to the exact same result even if the entity didn't know what the result would be?

If the decision making process occurs independently of the entity with foreknowledge of the outcome, how is that an illusion?

Either way, concept that you're dealing with isn't the same as the one that most of the rest of us are. In short, you're dealing with freedom from outside coercion.

That's the problem with these discussions. Everybody wants to jump in and state their opinion about free will, but nobody ever bothers to define what exactly free will is.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Why is free will valued?

I don't see what is free about being informed that I have a choice to make, one choice being punished and one choice being rewarded. Especially when I am told of circumstances when people were given good reasons to make these choices, much better reasons than I am now given. They were once given evidence that was not dependent upon fallible anecdote for instance.

Knowledge that I will be punished or rewarded severely places a level of coercion upon me. What is the point of this choice if free will is supposed to be valued? That places many variable degrees on what is good free will and what is bad free will.

There isn't some blank neutral state all people exist within. We are predisposed to behaviors through factors we did not choose, and these factors vary. That makes things not fair at all.

The idea that we are free because we were not forced to do what is best for us seems founded on romanticizing subjective aesthetics.

The notion that this is better than being informed without vague hints seems to be a game which thrives through obfuscating logic.

This game that the Abrahamic religions play concerning free will seems a presupposed model that is impossible to reason with, something only shared with con artists. Just like the value of faith tells you that questioning and doubt is not only discouraged, it is simultaneously intended to be taken as a strength which bolsters faith.

Why is free will valued if the consequences are eternal punishment? What could be worse than eternal punishment for finite crime? Being coerced is not as bad as eternal consequences.

If there were truly consequences I would coerce my children because I love them. Just because I value freedom and democracy does not mean I will allow my infant to crawl into a lion's den.

To give into the presupposed argument of the Abrahamic traditions is to argue if humans are informed enough to not be considered infants. But if the stakes are founded upon literally believing or not believing in something that plays with perception to the level that we have to debate it's existence, while facing eternal consequences over the existence of something which has to be debated, this is a tragic and terrible universe.

I think the greatest evidence we have that deities are man made is that we have to debate if they even exist or not. The idea of free will being valued is just a distraction in the face of that.

 

[tsig]

Even though the decision making process would come to the exact same result even if the entity didn't know what the result would be?
If the decision making process occurs independently of the entity with foreknowledge of the outcome, how is that an illusion?



That's the problem with these discussions. Everybody wants to jump in and state their opinion about free will, but nobody ever bothers to define what exactly free will is.

But it does know what the result will be. That's the omniscient part.

 

[Brian-M]

But it does know what the result will be. That's the omniscient part.

It's only omniscient if it actually exists.

If the outcome of my decision is unaffected by whether or not a prescient/omniscient entity I am unaware of does or does not exist, then in what way is my free will abrogated if it happens to exist?

I don't see what is free about being informed that I have a choice to make, one choice being punished and one choice being rewarded.

This seems to be a slightly different concept of deterministic free will than I'm using, so by my count that's at least three (possibly four) different working definitions of free will being used in this thread so far.

 

[pakeha]

...Omniscience isn't conceptually any different than considering the past from the viewpoint of the present. Our current knowledge of past decisions don't constrain their freedom; neither does the knowledge of an atemporal being do so.

How can a past decision be considered to have any 'freedom'?
Are you suggesting we could affect the past?
Sorry to sound dense, but you've lost me here.

 

[Aridas]

That's the problem with these discussions. Everybody wants to jump in and state their opinion about free will, but nobody ever bothers to define what exactly free will is.

Likely, this has something to do with the contentiousness of the issue. Still, I disagree, and point to myself. Pretty sure that I put up a working, if minimalistic definition of what I count as Free Will.