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Author | Topic: Free will vs Omniscience | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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quote: This is actually a very interesting case. Even if we assume determinism there seems to be nothing preventing Fred from telling Bill and Bill being so contrary as to choose Blue. So determinism is not sufficient. We could assume fatalism, so Bill is fated to choose Red, no matter what, but that really does destroy any form of free will. Let's think some more about how it might work if causality is a factor (which must be the case for any form of Free Will). Fred's vision cannot fix isolated parts of the future - all the relevant causal factors must be either fixed or restricted so as to guarantee the outcome foreseen. That includes anything Fred tells Bill that is relevant to Bill's choice. So, Fred is as trapped as Bill - If Bill is going to be contrary, Fred cannot tell Bill what his choice will be - it is implicit in the vision of the future that he will not. But that seems to undermine Fred's Free Will. But, there is one option left, although outside a strict reading of the parameters of the experiment, it's not so far out that it should be ignored. Fred's vision is conditional on his choice of what, if anything to tell Bill. Fred can know that whatever he tells Bill, Bill will choose the opposite. But this option still leads to a problem for the apologist. If Fred tells Bill, then he is dictating Bill's choice. And he is therefore responsible for that choice. But in the common view of God, Gods knowledge would be all encompassing, as would his influence. Everything choice would be like Bills choice, with God at the root of every causal sequence. Even chance events do not offer an escape since they must also be fixed in advance. Worse, by common belief God not only created everything else, but also intervenes in the universe, controlling it to a greater degree than if he merely created it. It is quite telling that Phat has to depict God as a mere passive observer, implicitly denying Gods role as creator as well as the Trinity (for Jesus acted in the universe) and many Biblical events. It is the only escape from the problem that does not deny Free Will.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: That is covered in the post. How do you deal with the case where your new character Tim is shown the film ? Is it possible for Tim to decide differently ? Or are there some restrictions that prevent such a scenario ?
quote: See my previous post for an analysis of this possibility.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: There is no requirement to show Tim the film, but there is certainly a requirement to consider that case - or, if it is impossible, to explain why it would be impossible to do so.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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So you're saying that perfect prognostication can work if the future isn't set in stone - as long as it isn't perfect. There's a bit of a problem with the logic of that argument.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: You certainly disagreed with the claim that perfect prognostication requires that the futures is set in stone, and you certainly appealed to imperfect prognostication to justify that disagreement.
quote: I think that it simply means that the future is absolutely fixed, without any further implications, other than those inherent in that. And I would agree with that (I would classify conditional perfect prognostication, where the prognosticator may change the future through his own choices as imperfect - only slightly so in the case where a single individual has the capability. However, if more than one person possessed the capability it would clearly be imperfect since the prognosticators could interfere with each other's prognostications)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Determinism - in this context - would say that, our choices do not involve a random element. Our own nature certainly can be the dominating factor in the choices we make.
Determinism is about cause and effect but there is no reason to think that the same external factors even if identical in every respect would always produce the same response in every human. Or even the same human, at different points in life. Determinism doesn't say that our choices are forced by external forces independent of our nature, it says that our nature forces us to respond to external forces in our own individual ways.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: But there is no opposition, simply different descriptions of the same thing.
quote: But in the deterministic view you do actually decide to make a choice. It's the indeterministic views that call that into question.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
You're failing to understand Cat Sci's position. Cat Sci has a view of free will that is incompatible with foreknowledge. If you want to argue against his position you need to argue for an alternative conception of free will.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Your thought experiment requires information to travel backwards in time - which raises the question of whether it is possible at all. Also, it can only escape the risk of paradox by moving to a fatalist view which would completely destroy free will.
And it still doesn't change the fact that foreknowledge requires the future to be fixed.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Why would you say no ? We can and do hold people responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions. Do you insist that God must be held to a lesser standard ? Why ? Surely God can live up to any standard that we would expect from a mere human.
quote: Foreknowledge - or at least a very good idea of what will happen - is an important part of it. But so is the act of creation - and not just of us, but of everything else. Given the usual abilities attributed to God, we might rephrase your words this way:
So...if God creates everyone and effectively tells us that we become the decisions we make, what if he manipulates us so that we choose to ignore Jesus Christ? What if we are manipulated into being be selfish, greedy, or manipulative? Is God responsible to keep us from damning ourselves just because he made us do it ?
You call all these things "free choices" but none of them are conscious choices for us. But they are God's conscious choices made before we could do anything, and which we have no power to avoid. How then can we be responsible for them, if God is not ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Which, in this scenario - like all our other choices - has been dictated by God. That is no reason at all not to hold God responsible.
quote:Of course in the text that is rejection, not a lack of foreknowledge (not only because that is what the context indicates, but also because the same lack of foreknowledge would apply to those who were not guilty - unless God did not allow them that possibility) quote: In the only sense that matters to this discussion we surely do. Enforcement is not an issue, only evaluation.
quote: You can't blame jar for the Bible. He didn't write a word of it.
quote: It doesn't seem to be so, unless you are one of those people...
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Do you have any support for that idea from the actual text of Exodus ? And isn’t it also your belief that we have a natural inclination to sin? Do you really want to say that God makes us sin ?
quote: It’s not us that has the problem.
quote: It’s not our fault that your beliefs are incoherent. If you will build a worldview out of dogma and lame excuses that problem is inevitable.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Strictly speaking Exodus says that God hardened Pharoah’s heart (eg Exodus 7:13). So if hardening Pharoah’s heart was a sin (your idea, not mine), God committed it.
quote: Giving us the power to do something is not the same as manipulating us into doing it. And since when were motivations sufficient to justify a sinful act ? More importantly this does not address the real points at all. Let us start with the basic problem. Exodus has God say that he will directly intervene to change the Pharaoh’s state of mind (eg Exodus 7:3) and has God doing so (eg Exodus 7:13). You assert that this is identical to the Pharaoh hardening his own heart. However, even under Calvinistic views the presence or absence of direct intervention would seem to be a difference, and even if you were to hold that it was not there is no reason to deny the presence of direct intervention (which mKes the whole point moot). I submit then that the lack of understanding is clearly yours.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: By memory it never says both for the same event. If you disagree, please cite the relevant verse(s). There is no problem with the idea that sometimes God did it and sometimes the Pharaoh did it himself.
quote: You have a very strange idea of intelligence.
quote: Which - according to you - is the same as saying that God manipulates all our choices.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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quote: It certainly does need to be if your argument has any hope of success. If you don’t even understand that different events can play out differently you have a serious mental problem. Try this, if you flip a coin once and it comes up heads, flip it again and it comes up tails does that prove that heads and tails are the same ?
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