Formal and Informal Logic

OK But Genesis tells us that we have the SAME knowledge of good and evil as God does. Granted that subjective applications of this knowledge could result in poor judgement in some marginal cases but on the whole, given the existence of God and given that our knowledge of good and evil is equivalent to His then a score of somewhere near 99% is more realistic.

I certainly would Well if the thought is wiped out and he has no memory of the thought then he also has no notion that it has been wiped out either. To him it never existed.
besides which the post wouldn't have existed in the first place.The bottom line is that if we never had any knowledge of the "evil" stuff we might have otherwise done then we would not be aware that we were being constrained from doing them. Therefore we would not percieve any limitations on our (illusionary) free will.Happy world. Great place to live eh?

I don't buy that. "Cannot" is not a word compatable with an all knowing God.
But let's not derail this thread too much.

But I can't tell the difference tho. It certainly feels like I would like it. And as feelings aren't real either for an automaton I just have to accept that God wants me to feel that way.

You first have to define God because if said God is omniscient and he exists then it negates free will anyway. We've been through all this before and given those premises it is the only logical conclusion.The other problem is that there is absolutely no way to tell the difference between having free will or not so there are no discernable advantages or disadvantages either way.Even if we don't have it, we still have the illusion of it.Whether God loves me or not doesn't really impact the outcome either.

Yes agreed. That pretty much defines no free will. Except that I was never in that circle since I never claimed to be freely concluding in any way shape or form. You just couldn't seem to accept that what I was saying is exactly what you have defined above.
As a machine I have no choice but to do what I do. however as I have no pre-knowledge of what I will do, I have the illusion that it is otherwise.

Good point. I missed that in your definition.
I guess that in the complete absence of free will then logic is really meaningless too since all we would be doing is following a set program of unchangable events.
In the absense of logic as a valid concept you would have no reason to believe anything.Edited by PurpleYouko, : Corrected spelling mistakes

As usual you jump to the wrong conclusion.
The whole point is that you can't tell the difference. unless you can show me a method to test for free will this is simply an exercise in (possibly illusionary, if no free will) logic.
Just because in the context of exploring a logical outcome of certain fixed premises, you reach a point which seems to make no sense or is contradictory in some way is no reason to abandon the course of the logic.
There are plenty of logical paths that lead to dead ends when based on fixed criteria. All it means is that you need to re-examine the premises and try again with slightly different starting data.

No problems.The point is that this is a thread specifically about applying formal logic and following it through to it's conclusions as opposed to applying "common sense" (or informal logic)When the premises are clearly defined, it is possible to follow a course of logical deduction in a formal way and by doing so, only one possible answer can be reached. You are free to believe this if you like but the statement does not follow formal logic as it can be shown to be logically inconsistant.
The train of formal logic says that if it is possible for any being or artifact to know ALL time infallibly then that time cannot be changed from the course it is already known to take. Therefore no free will.
This is not an implied weakness of God but simply a statement of the nature of the Universe. Any Universe in which foreknowledge is possible has to follow a fixed path throgh time as any deviation from that path would render the foreknowledge incorrect.Logically, in order for God to grant us free will he would have to create a Universe in which the future is in genuine flux. (I'm sure that would be well within his power.) But by doing so he must make it impossible for the future to be known by anyone, including himself.

Quite possible, assuming that the person performing the logical deduction is actually inside the system.As we are only performing an exercise in logic, it could well be assumed that the person performing the logic could be entirely outside of the given system. Let's say that person is God for example.Then again, if the premises are wrong then we have no problem. Our free will is genuine so our logic is no longer pre-determined.

Off Topic - DO NOT RESPOND

This is the entire crux of the argument that invalidates free will.
The point is that God CAN look at all time. He is able to see the very first insant of time and the very last instant and all instants in between.
To use your example, He sees me at time = 10 making a "free" choice then at time = 100 experiencing the effects of that "free" choice. Then how about he looks at time 10 again, and again and again. Am I ever going to make a different choice?
It's a bit like watching the replay of the Englan Vs Portugal World cup match. No matter how many times I watch it, Portugal are still going to win on penalties.
To somebody outside of time, watching all time simultaneously, who also KNOWS every choice we are ever going to make, it is like watching a giant still shot with everything fixed in place. Every instant in time is fixed. Exactly so how can it be anything other that what it IS? Free choice implies that it is changable. not at all since God created time and remains outside it. The logic implies that TIME is fixed, not God. he can recreate it to be different whenever he wants to. I cannot see any way to show any kind of logical consistency between it being possible for God or anybody else to know all time, and the existence of free will.
To know it, it must be fixed.
If it can change unpredictably (ie. by a free choice) then it isn't knowable.Edited by AdminNWR, : off topic

Fair enough but I don't understand why there is a problem.The specific discussion was about the logic.
The actual subject matter of free will was just a convenient example of its use and whether formal logical deductions were valid or not in that context.It is a little difficult to discuss logic without a medium through which it can be applied.

I'm not entirely sure I have even seen a decent example of what "informal logic" even is.We have defined formal logic pretty well but so far the informal examples seem kind of fuzzy and poorly defined. I mean the concept of informal logic rather than the actual arguments.

That sounds just like formal logic but possibly not as well laid out. With a little refining the two would appear to be equivalent. ie. you can easily make this kind of "informal" logic into formal logic with a bit of thought and planning.I agree with asome of your points earlier in this thread where Jazzns was saying that you weren't using logic when in fact you were laying down the premises on which your logic is based. In such cases it does not matter whether your premises are true or not. They just must be assumed in order to perform the logical deductions on them. That is the same way that I worked the free-will discussion with Iano.As for "subjective" as a definition of informal logic. I'm not so sure about that.
We certainly cannot say that ALL informal logic is subjective if we take your definition of informal logic = "normal prose" because what you have there is possibly poorly defined formal logic that can quite well be totally objective.I would like to see an example of this subjective informal logic or of your normal prose logic so that we can discuss them in detail.

OK but let's take it in small stages and see if we can convert your reasoning into a formal argument. To do that we will probably have to resolve each part as we go through it.
I see that Jazzns attempted to reduce the entire thing a little earlier but doing that is probably not the best way to go. First of all we have a couple of premises defined in this statement. it can be easily condensed to....

• God exists AND he is the one commonly accepted in Christianity
• The fall is true and explains all evil in the world

You go on to say.. This, on the face of it is a bare assertion. Let's see if it can be backed up with evidence. OK this is pretty convincing evidence I would say. It looks like you have a strong case for the impossibility of the fall and evolution co-existing.
The trouble is that now we have a major logical impasse.
In your premises you stated that the fall DID happen so that means that if you are correct and the fall is incompatible with evolution then under the rules of formal logic, evolution DIDN'T happen so it totally undermines your argument.Do you see the problem here?You either have to go back and change your premises before continuing or abandon all evidenciary deductions that sprang from anything remotely connected to evolution.