Does free will exist?
 

I did a search for this topic and came up with nothing, so if this has been discussed before, then accept my apologies, as I am not omniscient.

Before I start, allow me this caveat: This discussion is not about the Christian god or Jesus, but about every religion with a supreme, omniscient being. To this end, I will not capitalize the word "god" so as not to give the impression that this discussion is about the Judeo-Christian god.

Once, during an argument, a friend and I were discussing the power of god. My friend insisted that god knows everything about me, including what I will do in the future. During this same argument, my friend was also holding to the insistence that god gives us free will, because he wants us to choose to love him, not force us. To this I retorted with the following: god cannot be omniscient if we have free will, or, if god is omniscient then free will does not exist.

If, as the argument goes, god exists in the past, present, and future simultaneously, then he knows our future choices. This knowledge prevents us from choosing anything other than what he foresees us choosing. However, if we truly do have free will, then it follows that god cannot know what we will choose, thus eliminating the possibility of omniscience. Even if god chooses to ignore this knowledge, it's mere existence prevents the exercise of free will.

So, we either have free will or we have god, what's it gonna be?

Your thoughts?

If you apply string theory and the concept of a multiverse to this discussion (and then warp it to suit your needs like I will), it makes things easier. God(s) can be omniscient because they know what will happen, and you also have free will, because you can make a different choice in each of an infinite number of parallel universes.

I wrote the paragraph below before reading your post. It refers to free will versus determinism in the vein of societal and genetic behavioural control factors.

Yes. No one will ever discover conclusively that there is or is not free will. One of the major scientific paradigms is that "yes, we have free will but with limits." I believe this partially true, in that most of the time is is correct, though we have the potential to exercise complete free will; it is merely an extremely difficult, nigh impossible to do.

ah, good i can catch a thread like this before it explodes (i always seem to have the worst luck).

now, the presupposition here, and with your original post is the concept of time. if time applies to god (in whatever form/type/religion) as it does to us, then there is no free will, as god knows what will happen in that little book of hers/his/its where everything is written (be it a physical, mental, metabolic, whatever type of book/mind, etc. it may be), and we are bound to it. if, however, time is meaningless to this diety, we are free to have all the free will we wish, because we cannot ascribe the concept of before or after to such a being (this is the most clever explanation i have heard for having both a god and free will, even christians hate to think they have no control -except for in AA :D)

anyway, with that out of the way, here is my answer: ........maybe.
see, think about some of the major things that influence the course our lives take- we could not choose our parents, our ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, our birth country/area, etc. these things inherently limit (or expand) our possible life acheivements. so on that count, no. no free will.

we are, however, able to transcend many of these problems. besides, we chose what to eat this morning, didnt we? (that is, within the confines of what we had in the house or within driving distance, given the limitations of our income, transportation, what the store had in stock, etc.) now you see how complicated this gets, and very quickly :) but in this regard, yes, free will.

my two cents

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/search.php?searchid=406937


I'm not sure which forum you searched... ;)

So if we make a choice today, then simultaneously we are changing the future... because god exists in all, god will see us make the choice and see the future that choice brings for us.

There is no God(s). We are adrift and must choose to act how we will.

If, however, there is a God (which there isn't) it would act in much the way as Seeker describes. For if there is no free will there is no need of faith. If there is no free will we are free to do what we want because it is preordained that we should behave in this manner, make the choices we made. It aliveates ALL responsibility.

What does omnipotence have to do with free will?

If you offer a child candy or a fish head you understand a child well enough to know they will take the candy.

Likewise God would know you, much like you know a child, and know your motives. You still have free will, much like the child, but God would know your desire. Even if your personality was to take the 'fish head' to prove a point God would know that as well.

Now I am an atheist myself, but I think using free will vrs omnipotence as a test for God seems silly to me.

I always likened free will to a movie. God watches our lives outside our perception/limits of time, so while we have the free will to make choices, god can merely observe it as it unfolds, fast forward to the results, or just skip to the end to see how it turns out.

By the way, I came up with this pretty much on my own as a teen, now that 20 years have past as I post it, I don't feel nearly as bright about the idea.

Kind of a sticky subject... this whole "god" thing.

I think we have limited free will and here is why. (shades of grey again... sorry!)

Hypothetically:
I have just decided to jump out of the window, 7 stories down to concrete. Religion tells me not to jump because of the consequence of hell. But If I decide to go... no one will stop me.

Realistically:
From a psychological perspective I am likely to think of new things as a combination/permutation of things that I have heard and seen before and that is defnitley a physiological restraint on my ability to use free thought.

For example: Most inventors progress and build on combinations of old ideas until they have something novel and useful. The inventor of the electric furnace didn't invent electricity in order to make the first furnace, instead the person likely noticed that resistive electrical circuits heat up and then exploited this new knowledge to make heat coils.

Another way to look at it is that I use the same route to the grocery store every saturday because I already know the directions, and because it takes effort to learn the new route, even though it may be shorter or better.

For me to think that a god already knows or cares about every combination of moves I may ever make in life defies my experience of life so far. As far as I can tell, god is not anywhere to be found.

Religion, on the other hand, is abundant.

There can be no question whether or not religion has affected (sp?) the choices made by most or all people in the world, thereby determining what common behaviours you are likely to see displayed in society. (even me)

Religion has impacted the common knowledge base of people by literally imposing on us a common knowledge "set". Since any new creative thought or action is likely made up of a combination / permutation of the preprogrammed thoughts in the heads of humans all over the world, free will has been effected by religios dogma, not by god. (in my opinion)

Some would argue free will has been effected by religion in a favourable way and some would say it has been unfavourable... now THERE is a hot topic for debate!

RCA, I believe the thread was directed at a discussion of "can we have free will if someone already knows what we will do" discussion rather than the effects of religion on our choices.

Isn't it true in some circumstances in life you can understand your own fate? As an example, if I perform poorly in school, I know that my grades can ultimately lead to dramatic consequences, and yet I have the ability to choose whether to improve myself or not.
God is able to see the impact our choices can make in the future, so he wants us to make the best and wisest decisions in life so we are not deterred from our supreme goal.

In my understanding of religion, they believe that God GAVE us free will. If God knows everything about everyone and controls our every move, that wouldn't make allot of sense and how would we learn or grow as souls?

I don't believe in the Idea of religion, but i do believe in some greater force in our world and beyond... But i don't think this force or 'God' as others call it, controls our lives, there might be some influence here and there so we can learn lessons in this world, but for the most part, we are free beings who choose how and what we will learn while we are here. For instance, God did not make me click on this thread and answer it, i used my free will to decide that.

Sweetpea

Ustwo had it right (someone beat my kids analogy, though i use medicine and candy), knowing what choice someone will take does not mean that they have no free will.

I was babysitting my nephew the other day, I offered to let him stay up an hour late and watch tv if he wanted (I knew he would accept), he could have gone to bed, he did have a choice. He decided to watch tv.

The point is G-d knows us well enough to figure out what we will (or won't) do.

sweetpea
ah, but playing devil's advocate, so to speak, what about the fact that you have a computer, and are a member of the TFproject? if you had not chosen to join, and chosen to log in during this particular day to see these particular posts, would you have made the same decisions, and posted the same comments?

on the same page xazy, if your nephew had a different babysitter that day, would he have had the same option of watching TV that he did because you were there?

basically, if a being is omniscient, and truly knows all, there is the issue of free will even within these relatively simple choices.

omniscience implies infallability of knowledge (for if one truly knows all, then one cannot be wrong about anything or else one is not truly omniscient) with this in mind, we return to the issue of free will. if our diety-of-choice knows everything we are going to do, and is infallable in this knowledge, we cannot do anything other than that which is known to said deity, and hence, no free will.

on the other page, if a god is not truly omniscient, this argument falls apart (but assuming a god is not all-knowing leads to its own problems)
additionally, my original opposition of time-not-applying-to-god still causes problems for this argument as well.

But you see, it does mean we don't have free will if what we do is 100% predictable. It means that our choices are so constrained by whatever factors are at play, that we are no longer making the choice ourselves; we are doing what outside and internalized forces are pushing us to do.

And on the other front, this thread refers to free will versus fate. If fate were real (as suggested by taking the idea of an omniscient god at face value) then free will is simply an illusion and we all are doing what we have been destined to do.

UsTwo: That's very simplistic. One may tend towards taking the candy bar, but by no means will one take it every time. If one were to take it every time it was offered, then evidently that person has no free will. He or she cannot escape his or her drive for the candy bar.

As I said in the previous thread that CSflim was so kind to bring up, it's obvious that there is no problem between God's omniscience and our free will. Free will simply means that our decisions are up to us; God knowing what we will do doesn't affect whether or not that decision was up to us any more than my knowing what you will do affects whether or not you have free will. This is simply a pseudo-problem.

Even God's omnipotence doesn't hurt our free will, if he chooses not to use it. The only interesting problem in the area here is, if God *controls* everything, can we still have free will. Try a search for "Molinism" to see the solution I've adopted to this last problem; my posting there is a bit long, so I don't really want to re-type it.

Did you make a decision yesterday?

You now know what decision you made. Does this prevent you from having free will yesterday?

The self that percieved reality at that time had free will. It matters not the perspective of the self who exists today and remembers being that self, what matters is the free will, or lack thereof, of the self who acted.

Any god's knowledge, be it JHVH or a deterministic model of physics, of your choice is no more important than your own knowledge of your past.

One day I stood on corner and saw two cars both speeding toward the intersection, their speed and direction were going to cause an accident, I knew it was coming, it was just a matter of seconds. Because of a building they couldn't see each other, or therefore, the coming crash. When they did collide, was it my fault? Did my "foreseeing" the results somehow force them to crash? Of course not, it would be absurd to assume so. Knowledge of events does not equal compulsion.

G-d just knows what choice we will make, he does not make the choice for us. Our free will is not restricted by G-d's foreknowledge of our choice(s).

The other choice, is G-d exists outside of time, in which case he can see our life like a piece of paper.

But these are just a feeble attempt to conceptualize a being that we cannot ever conceptually ever fully grasp.

i think this thread is a good example of everyone's personal belief system affecting their perspective and you cannot change what people believe.
We cannot really have a 'debate' on this issue.
i respect everyone's perspective enough to not try to challenge it or change it.

Sweetpea

I'm with you, Sweetpea. What's the point?

Plainly said- if God- or gods INFLUENCE your decision, that is a nullification of free will.

Knowing what your decision is ahead of time, well...that's just a little omniscience going on. It doesn't change YOUR decision just because the outcome of that decision is known.

Omniscience by itself wouldn't necessarily negate free will.

However if you combine it with being the creator of everything wouldn't that negate free will?

*shakes fist impotently at sweetpea* Argue damn you! :D

On the other hand, I respect people enough to challenge their perspective, and hope that they respect me enough to challenge my perspective. That's why I'm on this board.

Sol -- only if you believe in a fully deterministic universe (and even then, it depends on what you mean by free will, and even if you have a strong view of free will, there are ways out of it).

mr sticky -- God's influence isn't enough to get rid of my free will. Consider the situation where I influence my friends to go to the bar with me -- do they still have free will? Of course! (Assuming they had it in the first place.) Even putting a gun to someone's head doesn't take away their free will, though it certainly influences their decision. But if God *causes* us to do something, that would tend to take away our free will.

But to challege someone's perspective, your opting to try to change it. That is IMPOSSIBLE. :)
You are no sooner going to believe that we're all here to learn something on this planet and move onto another life as in my spiritual belief system than I'm going to believe that God has a plan and is just pulling strings, "fate" as others have been stating on here.

In the end, we believe what we "feel" is right. beliefs aren't centered in rational thought or we'd all need proof, they are centered in what we feel deep down is correct to us, you cannot challenge a gut feeling.

There is no debating. No one is really having a debate here, they are just jockeying to get their personal belief system to the top and have everyone agree.

I have learned, that once a spiritual belief is ingrained in someone as an adult, there is no changing it.

:)

Sweetpea

asaris- I concede you the point, but I was speaking of more of divine intervention versus influences. I should have used my words more carefully.

jumpin jesus,

unless you happen to have your terms slightly confused then the short answer, in line with asaris is no.

if, however, by omniscience you are actually thinking about something like predestination then its clearly another story.

for an interesting take on the whole notion of free will and what it means for people I reccomend the work of a russian existentialist thinker nikolai berdyaev, particularly his book 'the destiny of man'. as a teaser he suggest, contends, holds, that man and his free will is necessary because creation is incomplete and in order for us to work with god to complete it a truly free will is necessary. one of the reasons to advance this notion is to do away with the concept that free will is really only a 'choice' between good and evil where everything is set up and all we need to do is choose our alegience (sp?).

God or no god, I will decide what TV show to watch next. If my wife will let me have the remote for a change. :)

I haven't been around here for some time so forgive me. I was going to post the same as sweetpea: what difference does it make to argue free will or predetermination? We'd never know the difference unless we are told the exact nature of our futures. Possibly, there is freedom of choice. If there is free will, we can change this destiny (overlooking that little... paradox... thingy... of how we were told what we now didn't do).

If there isn't free will, then any choices we "change" ultimately will lead to the same predetermined events.

Unfortunately we haven't a radio turner to the past [yet]--so I give this understanding. If a god does know all, despite free will, it is simply because s/he/it is higher than us. Two people, one on the ground and one atop a building stare down a road, metaphorically the future. The man atop the building can see much further than the man on the ground. Thank you frogza!

However, I do not believe in gods but simply higher intelligences than myself and give into the eccentric ideas like multiverse theory and alternate histories. Each verse has a set of predetermined outcomes to events, and we are given regions of choices free to us--like that of a dog on a leash. The dog has so much control in the area it has designated to crap in, like we have only so much control over the crappy lives ::bows::.

I like ;).

There is free will.

But then you KNEW i was going to say that. ;)

I assume that there is free will, because if there is NO god then there can be nothing that causes people to do things other than their own desires, and if there IS a god (or several) then what would be the point of a creation in which there is no development?

If there is NOT free will, then we are all just the daydreams of god.

Either way - if we assume that there is free will then people can be held accountable for their acctions - oterwise they are able to say "god made me kill and eat those people"...

The choice to act or not act in any situation HAS to be the begining of all morality.

I can challenge people's perspective without trying to change it.

Shucks, you can challenge perspective in order to strengthen it. You can challenge perspectives in order to understand it. You can challenge perspectives in order to establish understanding in the perciever. You can challenge perspectives for the pure joy of competition.

I do not play pool in order to place balls into cups. I do not learn about schitozophrenic thought in order to duplicate it. I do not ask mathematics students questions about their work in order to prove them wrong. I do not invite critisism of my code to justify trashing it.

An unchallenged life is not worth living, and an unchallenged thought is no thought at all.

Secondly, I also do not believe what you describe -- changing beliefs in adulthood -- is impossible. One of my best friends father converted, whole-heartedly, to a new religion as an adult. I do know that most belief systems seek to close the possessor against conversion, but people are far more than mere caracatures of their spiritual beliefs. People are wonderously complex and intersting things, and claiming anything is impossible for the wonder that is a person is, to me, hubris.

I do believe that it is very easy to be rude about changing someone's beliefs, and it may even be useful if people believe that changing beliefs is impossible. But I value honesty more than utility.

Kudos to you Yakk!

I found your whole post to be wonderfully worded, thank you!

Sorry I've been absent from this thread. I didn't mean to post and run, I just got caught up in other things.

Now, allow me to further clarify what I intended.

By omniscience, I am referring to having all knowledge. Some have erroneously assumed I meant omnipotence, which is not what I meant. Omnipotence is the act of being everywhere at once, omniscience is the power of having all knowledge of all things.

By stating that a supreme being is omniscient, I was referring to that being having all knowledge of all choices made by all people at all times.

Some have used the analogy of offering candy to a child, but I don't believe this is a good analogy since our knowledge is not based upon omniscience but intuition. We know the child well enough to know he or she will choose the candy but we do not have knowledge of the actual choice that will be made. We are certain that the child will choose the candy, but we do not have specific foreknowledge of the choice.

Omniscience doesn't involve intuition, it involves the actual knowledge of the specifics of choice. This is from where I based my discussion.

Again, I wish to reiterate that this was not intended to be a discussion of whether or not God exists, but whether the existence of omniscience - or predetermination - would negate free will.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the responses and to those who question the worthwhileness of debating such a topic, my response would be to ask: why discuss anything? I enjoy hearing others' views and I defer to seeker's post as he said it better than I could have.


To answer a couple of specifics:

Suave, actually, I tend to lean towards the existence of infinite universes in which every choice ever made by anyone is played out.

qweds, thanks for the recommendation. I enjoy reading existentialists and this is someone of whom I've never heard.

frogza, you make an interesting point, however, your knowledge of the events is only the result of you being a passive observer. Now, had you placed those cars on those paths and then gave each driver the ability to choose their course, knowing they would choose actions leading to a collision, then yes, it'd be your fault.

and CSfilm, I swear I did another search and still came up with nothing. Maybe we're existing in those parallel universes: you in one that has this thread already in existence, and me in one that doesn't. Somehow, those universes have overlapped here in this thread. I even clicked the link you provided and got a "Sorry, no matches met your criteria" etc etc etc.

hmmmm.

First, the fact that the knowledge of the events is merely the result of being a passive observer is sufficent to rule out simple omniscience conflicting with free will. If God merely knows everything that happens/will happen/has happened, but doesn't have any control over it, he doesn't interfere with free will.

Second, 'fault' is a bad word to use here, since it implies moral blame. It's unclear that merely by setting those drivers on that road, you should be blamed for the accident. Perhaps only by what you call 'causing the accident' could a much greater evil been averted. But more importantly, I don't see why we should think I caused the accident at all, or, if it all, then in a very minimal sense. Most proximally, the intersection of the two cars caused the accident; somewhat less proximally, the free choices of the drivers caused the accident. My actions, whatever they might have been, to put those drivers en route to the accident, are very far removed down the chain of causality. In fact, if we're keeping to a libertarian definition of free will, they're not really part of the chain of causality at all.

As far as other threads go, see if you can find my thread on Molinism (I think 'Molinism' as a search term should do it). That's very relevant to your problem, since Molinism is an attempt to reconcile a strong view of providence (God ordains all things) with a strong view of freedom.

I would think omniscience to be the knowledge of all possibilities, the object of free will would be like sitting back and watching what each of us decide to do within that vast array of possibilities.

If we were to look at omniscient, as having all knowledge of all choices made by all people at all times, are you referring to our future choices as well? I would think that perspective would negate free will as there would be no purpose but to act out a play that was already determined... I can't see any logical reason in that.

The purpose of free will, as I understand it, is to prove that we are not merely gods puppets, we have the capacity to choose to see god's ways and learn to love god on our own, not because we were made or programmed to do so.

Another way of looking at this would be if one were to decide to perform an act that is blatently horrific, that is a choice... there is no intervention to stop that action - if that's not free will I don't know what is!

So from what I understand about god and his gift of free will, god may know all, yet will not intervene... as that would negate the free will we were given. In that I find it difficult to understand people blaming god for bad things that happen, when in actuality they happen because we have free will and god cannot intervene as that would negate the purpose of free will.

(Heh... Give 'em enough rope huh?)

Actually just reading back, I really should just agree with asaris's post above :D... omniscience is very much like being the passive observer and in no way interferes with free will (our actions and choices).

Sorry Suave I have been out of town for a few days.

I beleive you did not read everything I wrote.

Your response was simplistic in that you avoid the major issue of whether god Knows what we think... I address that issue at the out set and further on down my post.

In fact I answered two questions.

On this issue, I say I have do do a little agreeing with some people. Particulary Seeker and Asaris.

God can be as omniscience as it wishes, It can have all knoledge of the entire universe, but the key is the devine intervention. The funny thing here is the fact that the only thing lacking free will is actualy God itself.

If god knows all then God Knows its future. So God is the one who knows the decisions and actions of gods future.

just something else to think about for you all.

That is, if God has a future. If God is outside of time, then all times are present to God, and we don't have that little problem you mention. Even if God is inside of time, we can still say that he always had already decided what he was going to do, so it's still up to him what he does.

simply being a passive observer creates problems, if we take omniscience to be infallible (as it must be). the state of all-knowing implies that god/dess, etc. knows not only the choices available, but what one will be chosen (or else it is not truly a state of all-knowing). so, we have no issue with divine intervention, as it is not necessary if the god of choice knows everything.

I don't know how I missed this post earlier, but I did. Actually, pennywise, this is precisely what I hoped for this discussion. You said it more succinctly than I was able.

I just think that the existence of both omniscience and free will is a paradox, if we view omniscience as the infallible foreknowledge.

If true free will is creating your present by living in the future you choose to create, and omnicience is the paradigm that carries that possibility within it, then I can see the two as not mutually exclusive.

So there is the idea that by knowing the choices that are to be made, is the same as controling the choices made. The fact that we canot do anything that the diety has said. This seems more like a contradiction. What about the fact that this diety could exist outside this dimentinal universe of intervention. Then this leaves us with the idea that within our own dimention of existance, we have free will, whilst outside this universe, or, in the power of gods true uncontrolled intervention, This free will disapears. As god would now not be an observer, but involved with existance constantly. Although this is drawing a big line between "our world", and the "world of the devine".

i think, with all due respect peat, that we must be careful to make the distinction between knowledge and intervention. simple knowledge does not necessitate any action or control on the part of a god. we can have the passive observer of previous posts, and still be bound by the knowledge. in other words, we must not mistake effect for cause. the fact that we cannot act outside of the omniscience of a god does not mean that god made us do it. again, the issue falls to the infallability of that knowledge.

moreover, truly free will would carry with it the freedom from any constraints. god cannot simultaneously exist completely separate from our dimension and have omniscience with regards to our dimension. more to the point, however, if we are to draw the line connecting our dimension and another, we cannot give ourselves free will in one without having free will in all, or we have no truly free will. believing we have free will, as in your example, does nothing to change the fact that god is omniscient, even if in her/his/its own dimension of existence.

If it is assumed that things operate purely on cause->effect. And that effects are causes in of themselves. Then free will does not exist as current causes have already been determined by those which preceeded them.

Peat & Pennywise121:

My coworker would argue about this to the death. He very much believes in the 3 forms of god: The Son, The Father, and the Holy Spirit. If you asked him "Coul god could create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it?" He would say: "Yes. The spirit could create it and the son, Jesus, couldn't." To me, this is silly- though it is a clever answer to a trap question.

Here's an interesting point brought up in my school's philosophy club on the subject:
If the nature of god's omniscence implies that we have no free will, then does it also mean that some people are predetermined to go to hell?

The idea that simple omniscience conflicts with free will is based on a simple misconception about the necessity involved. Say God knows that tomorrow I will drink a cup of coffee. This entails that necessarily I will drink a cup of coffee tomorrow. It does not entail that I will necessarily drink a cup of coffee tomorrow. To put it another way, the necessity is de dicto, necessity of the statement, not de re, necessity of the fact. The truth of proposition is necessary, not the activity in the statement. That this is true can be easily seen if we look at statements about the past. If I know I had a cup of coffee this morning, then necessarily I had a cup of coffee this morning. But nobody would say that this means I didn't have any choice in the matter.

Isn't the word of god infalliable? And therefore would make any statement of his true? This would mean, god's "de dicto" statement must be "de re".

It doesn't really matter. The end result is you drink a cup of coffee. Whether you have a choice or not is entirely an illusion. Our lives could be completely determined. However, because we don't know what will happen next, it gives us the illusion of choice.

exactly my point, robaggio. we have the illusion of free will no matter what the situation, but it is free will only of a second order. even if it appears free to us, we are still stuck with a lack of ability to choose other options and therefore a lack of truly free will.

i am completely open to the possibility that i am missing the subtle distinction, but isnt what you just said a sort of "A but not A"? it both entails and does not entail the action?
furthermore, if the truth of a proposition (that in itself is an action) is necessary, but the completion of the proposition is not, we are stuck with a conflict. we cannot have a situation where it is true that we drank a cup of coffee this morning, but we didnt actually drink that cup of coffee. either the action happened, or the proposition was faulty.
meh, anyway, dont want to thread-jack this off topic. sorry

An analogy which I have seen to illustrate the difference goes something like this:

Bob is a bachelor.
A bachelor is necessarily unmarried.

Therefore...
Poor bob! He can never get married!

The fallacy is obvious in this example. I believe that asaris is suggesting that the free will misconception is based on a similar confusion (correct me if I am wrong asaris).

That sounds about right, actually. Thanks.

There definitely isn't free will. If the universe doesn't follow causality 100% of the time (which is the only way that works) then the universe is random chaos. And seeing how I haven't turned into a bunny or exploded for no reason, I'm leaning toward causality. And since in causality everything is just extremely complicated cause and effect, there is only one possible outcome.

" If the universe doesn't follow causality 100% of the time... then the universe is random chaos."

That is a pure non-sequitur.

again, if i am misunderstanding, i am sorry, but i am open to that possibility.

csfilm: i understand the way your example is fallacious, but i dont see this situation as being analogous. basically, here is my line of thought.

(Assumption) 1. God is omniscient
2. omniscience implies infallability of knowledge

(basically, god knows all, and is never wrong about anything)
3. god knows that you will drink a cup of coffee tomorrow morning (and for the sake of simplicity, only ONE cup)

now,
4. IF (1.) god is omniscient, (2.) omniscience implies infallability of knowledge, and
(3.) god knows that you will drink one and only one cup of coffee tomorrow morning,
THEN you will drink one and only one cup of coffee tomorrow morning.

basically, my problem with the analogy is that in a situation such as this, it would seem that just because bob IS a bachelor does not mean that bob will be a bachelor FOREVER. in this example, we are dealing with single choices at various points in time. either i drink coffee tomorrow or i dont. there is no lasting influence, and any assumption as such is, as you pointed out, fallacious.

perhaps i am thinking too simplistically, but what we are dealing with is a series of dichotimous situations. now, to explain that thought, the question is no longer if god is omniscient, or if omniscience is infallable. rather, god, being omniscient, knows not only all the possible choices, but which one will be chosen at any given time, limiting our dilemna to only two options- whether we 1. complete the action/make the choice, or 2. we do not.
i agree (if you are thinking it) that this seems to be dangerously close to begging the question, but if we are to accept that god is omniscient for the first part of the argument, we must also accept it here (for if god is omniscient, she must be so in all cases, or she is not truly omniscient). that being the case, unless we are free to counteract an all-knowing entity, and thus disprove the quality of omniscience, we are bound by that knowledge whether or not god actually acts on us.

on to the issue of time.
if god exists in our dimension of time, and perceives our actions as they happen, and knows what we choose only because we choose it, we have an issue of a lack of knowledge. god would be all knowing only secondarily, because we would have to choose for him to know. i think of this as all-knowing the past. if this is the case, we have a problem with the definition of a god, but we certainly have free will.

if god exists outside of our time, and knows everythign that will happen from the time it created the universe (and, say, wrote it all down in the metaphysical book), we have a problem of predetermination (because this entails FOREknowledge of our actions). in this case, god is infallable, we have no free will, and we are screwed in terms of who will go to hell or heaven (assuming they exist- totally other topic).

if, on the other hand, god exists outside of our time, but from a disconnected sense where time really does not apply (in other words, god looks at this universe from the outside, and sees all that was, is, and will be in one swipe, regardless of any influence of time on him/her). to me, this is more in tune with true omniscience. if this is the case, we have no free will (based on the omniscience issue), but we are not predestined to anything (because there is no conception of PRE- or POST-destination without a conception of time as it applies to us)

now, as for me, just to be clear as to where i stand, i am definitely on the athiest side of agnosticism (if such a thing can be said to be a scalable thing). i believe we have free will in a limited sense, as strange as that seems.
anyway, sorry for the long-ass post yet again :o

Not to nitpick, but omniscience does not imply infallibility of knowledge. Knowledge is itself infallible -- knowledge just means "justified true belief". This isn't exactly the normal english usage, but it's the philosophical meaning of the term, and anytime I use the words knowledge, or know, or etc., I'm using it in this sense.

The analogy is an analogy of the same sort of modal confusion, not the same sort of situation.


Not necessarily. If you take this view (and there are philosophers who do), what you can say is that God doesn't see the future in the traditional way, but since he knows all of us really well, and knows all the circumstances in the universe, he's really, really good at predicting (detractors would say guessing) what we're going to do in the future. You might call this view 'practical omniscience' -- God doesn't see the future, but we can probably say that he knows what's going to happen.

Again, this is a non sequitur. Merely restating the same point you've been trying to make doesn't constitute an argument. We have free will iff our actions are up to us. It's, at the very least, hard to see how God knowing what we will choose means that our actions aren't up to us. Also, you're creating two cases (this one and the one below) out of just one. If God is outside of time, it's more like the bottom case than the above.

For the record, I assume we have free will. It seems clear to me that we bear moral responsibility for some of our actions but not for others, and whatever it is that makes the difference between these two cases, that's free will. I said above that free will means that our actions are up to us; that's a fairly uncontroversial definition of free will (at least, as uncontroversial as anything is among philosophers), but it doesn't have much content. The two major camps are the compatibilists (who believe that free will is compatibile with determinism) and the libertarians (who believe that free will is not compatibile with determinism. Compatibilists tend to define free will as something like "being able to do what we want". Libertarians tend to define free will as something like "being able to do otherwise". I tend towards the libertarian camp, but I mention this because there are a large number of philosophers, dating at least back to Aquinas, who believe that even determinism does not conflict with free will. If this position is logically coherent, then certainly there is not conflict between free will and mere omniscience.

Discussion of free will necessarily presumes the existence of divinity, and a divinity that cannot be disproved. If we are to take the existence of divinity as a given, the establishment of free will is likewise impossible, since it is a system derived from an entity whose properties are strictly unknown, yet custom-extrapolated to the shared schema of a given religious sect.

In other words, god is a supposition, and you can't extract a determination from a supposition. It's the other way around. You're supposed to base speculation on tangible data, not on the original speculation. That way lies madness. And, not coincidentally, thousands of years of wide-scale bloodshed.

i dont want to threadjack this topic any further, but it would seem that there are some disparate assumptions about the world that need to be pointed out so that we may better understand where the other one is coming from.

for one, you have put forward the epistemological conception of JTB. the platonic conception of justified true belief, while a perfectly reasonable one, is unfortunately not the conception of knowledge that i am working under. JTB does not necessitate certainty, which leaves the possibility of accidental "knowledge" (which i would argue is not true knowledge). if the only requirements for making an epistemological claim are that 1. i have a belief. 2. i can justify my belief to the liking of at least myself, and at best to others, and 3. my belief is true (hence, justified true belief), we leave ourselves open to the possibility that it could well be a coincident.

for example, if i am well aquainted with you asaris, and i believe that you have a raisin bagel in your fridge right now, and i can justify that belief based on my familiarity with you, i can still make no claim of knowledge even if it happens to be true that you have a raisin bagel in your fridge. i did not KNOW that you did, even if i had good reason to believe it.

now, anyone would be hard pressed (myself included) to prove that certainty is required for knowledge. for instance, our modern conception of science does not require certainty to make claims about how we believe the world works. if it did, there would be no breakthroughs in gravity, nor thermodynamics, etc. etc.

however, because we are purely into the realm of hypotheticals, i beleive that we must hold ourselves to a higher standard than is possible in real-life applications.

consider the following
1. true knowledge is infallable (on this point we agree, asaris)
2. if an idea is fallable (i.e. there is a possibility that it can be wrong), it cannot be the basis for a claim of knowledge.
3. if i adhere to JTB principle about belief x, but i had no CERTAINTY that belief x was true, i cannot claim to have knowledge (see 1 above).

now, for the record, this falls along the lines of error theory, derived from Descarte's meditations.
1. Knowledge is infallable
2. if i can not be certain i am not in error about belief x, i cannot claim to KNOW x
3. i cannot be certain i am not in error.
---------------------------------
4. i can not claim to know x

now, to allay suspicions of further modal confusion, what i am saying is not that because i cannot be certain about x, i will NEVER be certain about it. rather, what i am saying is that at the single point in time (and any other subsequent point where proposition 3 holds true) we can make no epistemological claim based on belief x.

furthermore, omniscience is a powerful quality. unless god is correct in her knowledge 100% of the time, she is not omniscient. simply being "really really good at predicting" falls far short of omniscience.

as to the issue of existence inside or outside of our conception of time being a non-sequitor, i respectfully disagree. i put forth only three of the many conceptions of god-time that are possible, and for good reason.

my first example was to disprove the concept that god could be omniscient without experientially independant knowledge (we must choose for her knowledge to be considered such).
if, however (example 2), god created the universe, and is omniscient, it follows that god would know everything that would come to pass, and we have a problem of predestination, or "theological fatalism", which has its own issues and solutions not related to this thread (and thus, not discussed here), not the least of which is ultimate omnipotence (given that god is the creator of everything that is, god is therefore the ultimate cause of everything that happens as a result of her creation of the universe).
if, as another possibility (example 3), god did not create the universe, but exists as an entity outside of our dimension, with omniscience, but not ultimate omnipotence, we have an issue of having free will only to ourselves, and not to god (that sees all of existence at a glance, and knows what was, is, and will be), which amounts to nothing more than second order free will, and as such, is not truly free will.

we must take care not to limit our choices and define our conceptions of "free will" or "omniscience" too narrowly, for if we are to come to any epistemic claim, we must address possible detractions to the idea.

now, with that in mind, i sincerely apologize to jumpinjesus for officially threadjacking a discussion on free will into one on the effects of omniscience. as such, i have created a separate thread dealing solely with the issue of omniscience, and some very interesting (at least to me) theories on the effects of omniscience on our existence, one of which was put forth by a professor of quantum physics, even.

i encourage you to join me at omniscience continued...... for further discussion- assuming anyone wants to. :D

This is actually a major question whether you approach it from a theistic point of view or not.

One concept of the Christian God is that He is there are the beginning of time, the end of time, and the middle of time similtaneously. God is at all times, in all places, and knows all that passes before Him. In this case it is difficult to fit in the concept of Free Will -- everything is a "dumb show" that is settled from the very beginning (and end). God, in this model, has foreknowledge AND everything is predestined as it has all already taken place (just as it IS taking place in the present and HAS taken place in the past and WILL take place in the future). This is essentially the position of the Presbyterians, settled on in the 16th century -- Calvin, Knox and the crew believed in this (as did my grandmother up until she died, Auld School Scotswoman that she was).

But let us look at this from a non-theistic perspective just for a moment.

Position 1: Every action has an antecedant condition that impels it. Each previous action also had an antecedant condition, and so on backwards. Each condition sets up a necessary course of action. Just as if we could predict each and every ending position of a break on a billiards table if only we knew each of the variables involved in the break itself, each of the balls, the state of the table, wind currents, etc., so, too, would all of life be reduced to a series of cause-and-effect calculations. In this case there is no Free Will, as each action is predetermined (even we do not understand each and every pre-set condition).

Postion 2: Actions do NOT have antecedante conditions that impel them. Thus a break on a billiards table would cause an elephant to appear in the middle of the table and start discussing the finer point of Newtonian physics. Since this is an utterly random event, again we have no control over the action and thus there is no Free Will involved, only random action.

The problem here is Too Much Logic. Logic works well on a 2-term basis -- yes/no, on/off, black/white, open/closed. This is the basis of most Western thought. We like to think of ourselves of Logical (and Reasonable) individuals. But what if there were a third term in Logic? Yes/No/Maybe? On/Off/Partial? Black/White/Grey? This would up-end most of our discussion, lead to the possibility of Free Will, and punch a large hole in science as we know it.

In many ways, I think our search, as a group, is for an understanding of that Third Term.

Without it, life is reduced to logic gates, there is no Free Will, and thus life is a farce.

I refuse to believe life has absolutely no meaning or purpose.

Pesonal opinion, expressed only by the ex-management. ;)

It seems ridiculous, but actually it's true. If any one part of the universe is random the entire universe becomes random. Because athough the rest of the universe reacts to the randomness in an orderly fashion the actual source of the change is random.

If anything was truly random than absolutely anything could happen. An infinitely dense black hole could appear, a genie could destroy the universe, superman could be born, a second big bang could occur. Literally anything you could think up would be entirely possible.

Even if things WERE random, you still wouldn't have free will. You'd just be behaving randomly.

As to the last guy, how does the possession of free will even give your life meaning? And there already is a "maybe" in logic. We simply say that we don't know.

Id like to add a few points.

In a universe without a god, ruled only by natural laws, free will most likely cannot exist. Since every particle is ruled by set laws of nature, even something as complex as a human being is just a composition of such, and is therefore ruled in a predetermined way by those same laws. The whole course of the universe will in the same way be set from the very start (if a word such as start even applies to a universe, who knows). We could never calculate or verify this, due to the immensity of the factors affecting said things.

(It is possible that a free will system can appear by nature, trough evolution, who can be sure.. the concept is very hard to grasp. A simple example to think in the right direction about this is an electric relay. http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_4/chpt_5/1.html
An electric relay is a very simple way to create one system that is controlled by another, where the second system is quite independent of physical laws, in the sense that it can for example be made of a vast amount of different materials and work in the exact same way regardless of them, thereby partly taking natural laws out of play.
IF our brains, or some electronic brain we will some day create, are/can indeed be independent at least partly from natural laws, then free will can exist (without a god).. id greatly appreciate any input on this paragraph, in pm if you feel it wouldnt be on topic. As an afterthought, wouldnt it be ironic if a computer we one day create will be the first example of free will?)

Now, if you accept my first paragraph to be true, at least theoretically, in a universe that DOES have a god, this means that it must be omnipotent (omniscience is not an issue, though an omnipotent being should be able to acheive omniscience at will, or lose it.) because it will have to alter the rules of nature (which we claim evidently exist) in order to give any being the gift of free will.

So, to sum it up, a god probably needs to exist in order for free will to do so, and it must most likely be omnipotent, or at least be able to manipulate life in mysterious ways.

To the previous poster: Randomness is a divine event - it does not exist in nature.
Events we call random, like the roll of a dice, only seem random to us due to the fact that we are too simple to predict its outcome. (or so it would seem to me).

Just out of curiousity, why does this follow? That is, why should we think that a godless universe would have to only be ruled by natural laws? And why should we think our grasp of those laws is much better than, say, Newton or Aristotle?

the fact the you are all still talking about this PROVES that free will does indeed exist ;)


Sweetpea

I'm predestined to believe I have free will.

Nothing in human science suggests that anything is random, and so for the sake of argument i accept it to be true. Isnt it safe to assume that in a godless universe (totally devoid of any spiritual beings, souls etc) everything is ruled by mechanics and laws? (with the possible exception in my first post?).

Im going to make a post and see if anyone can come up with a true random event. http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=94278

On Aristotle and newton:
Our grasp of natural laws would be greater than those personas simply because of the huge effort and progress being made since they lived?
Aristotle was among those first people who sucessfully started contemplating how the world works and keeping records of his findings. Most of those findings were outright wrong, or at least incomplete.. that doesnt lesser his acheivements based on what he accomplished in relation to the pre-knowledge he had. He was for sure a great genius capable of understanding.
Newton may have been one of the most intelligent people to ever have lived,
his acheivements are amazing, and while at least his most famous work is correct, it is only correct based on the pre-knowledge he had. More recent scientists (Einstein) have proven his work incomplete or incorrect when factoring things unknown to Newton.

Theres just no competing with the communal knowledge humanity gains?

Of course both can exist.

As many have pointed out... just because god knows what's going to happen, doesn't mean those events weren't your choice. If god is really god, then god would be completely omniscient- and omniscience defies all concepts of "time". "Time", itself, being a human invention, not a force in nature. "Time" exists because we like being able to know when things happened. Time is not a rock, or a tree, or something measurable. We can only "keep" or "measure" time because we've stated at some point, "for every instance of ______, that is what we will call one second". Since time is an idea, there is no reason to doubt it's total lack of consequence to a god.

Since god would know all that has happened, is happening, and will happen, god would be able to know, at any point, exactly what you're going to do. You chose to go to Starbucks instead of Dunkin Donuts one day- that doesn't matter. It was your option, but because "time" doesn't exist, god could see you making the decision before you knew you'd made it.

Just because god can see everything happen, and knows everything that WILL happen, does not mean god MAKES those things happen- god just observes them happening "before" you've done it. Keep in mind that even when discussing the idea of god being able to see what you "have done", "are doing", and "will do", that those terms don't even apply to a timeless god. There's no such thing as "before" unless god wants to put perspective on one event to another- god would know, see, and be aware of everything, at once.

Saying "god knows what i will do before I do it" is ascribing the laws of "time" to god, and you can't do that.

Yes, if an omnipotent God really existed then absolutely anything would be possible. He could just ignore logic and reason and make it happen. But we have no reason to believe that he is doing this. It is possible that he is, but it's more logical to behave as if the perceptible universe that we live in is the true one, and that things make sense once you know everything about them.

Time as a human invention? And this makes it not a force of nature?

I'm not sure I follow this reasoning.

Aren't numbers and letters human inventions? Does that lessen their impact on our lives?
I would argue that time is something measurable the fact that we have units of time.. minutes seconds, millenia take your pick shows that it exists. Why is a tree more real than an hour and a half. I was born. I am now middleages/38/halfway through current life expaectancy.. doesn't this prove that time exists?

I disagree on several counts.

First, infallibility of knowledge is questionable against our ability to understand things which are infinite (be it space, time or knowledge). If there are, in fact, multiple dimensions, so to speak, where branches of decisions are made across time slices, which one you fall into it random, but in thoery all possible choices are chosen in one slice or another. Of course, this is purely academic, but then, so is the inital argument.

Second, a god or goddess in any sense other than a modern monotheistic sense, has never been omnipresent or omniscient. Polytheistic religions, which are still in existence and which have, in many cases, been around far longer than any modern monotheistic religion, have always been wrought with stories of warring and competing deities. This could not be so if they were all omniscient for (I think) obvious reasons. Perhaps this question, then, could be answered differently by a Christian than a Hindu? A Jew than a Pagan? Just food for thought.

I think I see what Analog was trying to say (or maybe not)...

Time is a perception developed by humans. It may or may not be linear as we perceive it. Look at the radio spectrum. We know microwave exists (now) and that VHF and UHF exist (though the names of all of the above are useless in this sense). However, we can only physically detect the 'visible light' portion of that spectrum. Most people, even a lot of educated people, can't grasp the concept that the color red (as it's perceived) and the signal sent to their radio is the SAME thing, one's just "wider" than the other. Sound is in there too... and we can detect that. Other creatures can detect pieces of that that we cannot (bats, bees, etc.)

In other words, yes... time is "natural", but our perception of it may be extremely limited in the grand scope of things.

Simply put, if there is an omnipotent creator, and/or all things are predictable or determined in advance, we have no free will. Whether all things happen for a purpose, or happen merely as effects of a prior cause, they can still be predictable or inevitable, and again would be consistent with there being no free will. Free will is essentially a human concept that results from our being aware of an abiliy to make decisions based on astract observations and projections.

In my view (not being faith-based), we will never know to any degree of certainty whether or not we have free will, but it's undoubtedly a good idea to act as if we do have it. And it's certainly predictable that most humans will see things from that perspective and act accordingly.

Ustwo - very interesting post, and very close to what I think. I believe that we have free will, but that there is also an omnicient being. There is a "greater plan" for all of us, but we have the free will on how we get there, and may decide to stumble and fall a bit along that path.

Perhaps you can explain how you reconcile these two aspects of your beliefs: One, that if a being is omnicient, it knows by definition everything that is going to happen in the future before it happens;
Two, if you have free will, and are thus allowed to vary the way you proceed along your path, then everything that is going to happen in the future is not known in advance by any omniscient being.

It would seem that one way to reconcile this would be to hold or speculate that the omniscient being has given you the illusion of free will, so that you can therefor believe in both aspects at the same time - but this could also mean he has given you insufficient skills to spot the contradictions involved. Not to worry - we all suffer from lack of those skills one way or the other.

You know, Francisco, we've discussed all of this, and I think in this very thread. You might want to check out that discussion...

Everytime you make a decision, ask youself if you could have chosen differently. Mere knowledge of the choice you have made (or will make) does not remove your ability to choose freely.

It's the difference between what someone will do v. what someone can do.

asaris said: You know, Francisco, we've discussed all of this, and I think in this very thread. You might want to check out that discussion...

I know it was discussed. I was replying specifically to the previous poster, who evidently had NOT checked out the previous discussion. And apparently I have failed to see where that reply duplicated any previous post in any case.

I also saw a lot of repetitiveness in previous posts, and no-one seems to have been chastised for this. Are you a moderator of some sort?

Or do you perhaps have a problem with the non-Christian viewpoint?
I have no problem with Christians, if that's your surmise. I just like to hear their rationale for certain positions - I thought that was what this forum was all about.

Perhaps it would be of interest to read again what your man Nietzsche had to say about Christianity (and I think he misses the point entirely, but I've never quoted him as a source of wisdom):

Christianity's Origin

Christianity as antiquity.-- When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God's son? The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory; and the fact that the claim is believed - whereas one is otherwise so strict in examining pretensions - is perhaps the most ancient piece of this heritage. A god who begets children with a mortal woman; a sage who bids men work no more, have no more courts, but look for the signs of the impending end of the world; a justice that accepts the innocent as a vicarious sacrifice; someone who orders his disciples to drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of a beyond to which death is the portal; the form of the cross as a symbol in a time that no longer knows the function and ignominy of the cross -- how ghoulishly all this touches us, as if from the tomb of a primeval past! Can one believe that such things are still believed?

from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human, s.405, R.J. Hollingdale transl.

I'd be interested in discussing Nietzsche's views on Christianity, but this probably isn't the thread to do it in.

No, I'm not a moderator, but I play one one TV :). That is, I've been posting here long enough that I have a fairly good idea of how things work, so I'm not shy (perhaps not as shy as I should be) about pointing people in what I think is the right direction. If I singled you out, it was because you had asked a specific question that we've discussed in some detail fairly recently.

Of course I have a 'problem' with the non-Christian viewpoint -- I think it's false. But I've known quite a few very intelligent non-Christians, and I don't think non-Christians are all either stupid or especially wicked.

Nietzsche was an Anti-christian though, was he not?

As of Free Will...

The idea of free will is extremely appealing, because it suggests that we have the power to change our paths. With that in mind, most religions use that to lure in followers. Religions put a limit to our choices and most often depicts our choices for us. That's not considered free will anymore.

How can we actually define free will? Everything is based on something...can we actually consider it?

In order to discus this issue we must first prove that free will exists. So far everyone is dancing around this basic question.

If an action is caused by another event, then it is not "free". If an action is free from any cause then it is random and thus meaningless.

Take away the idea of god from this scenario. How do things change? After all it's not the knowledge of our future actions that make us feel as if free will has been stripped from us but the fact that it is inevitable. Even if there is no one to know what will happen, it will happen. It will happen whether we live in one reality or multiple realities. An infinate number of realities where everything that can happen does happen and none of them give us a choice.

Just what the hell if free will?

An action that is free from influence of another being. It is a social concept. A linguistic term to describe a social situation. Yet here we are, taking something as blunt and vague as the term "free will" and attempting to apply it to the universe around us. Whats next, an attempt to give the universe a "purpose"?!

Some thoughts

[In order to discus this issue we must first prove that free will exists. So far everyone is dancing around this basic question.]
I'd say the opposite is true, as the assumption that prevails, and that all our actions are based on, is that free will does exist. So to answer the initial question, we would need to attempt to prove first that it doesn't exist, and that our feeling that we are making choices freely is itself an illusion, and that it was either predetermined or an inevitable result of evolution that we should feel that way.

"Predetermined" doesn't require a purpose behind all of this, but doesn't rule it out either. The best argument against free will has always been that physical laws of nature make the chain of cause and effect lead to inevitable results, and that one of those effects IS the illusion that decision making processes operate freely rather than that they are simply part of chemical reactive process which calls itself "life."

Present day science suggests there is a randomness involved in the cause and effects process that might allow for a reasonable belief in free will after all. So while that doesn't prove the "free will" concept is valid, it tends to weaken the argument that it isn't. So it doesn't look like we can prove that free will doesn't exist, but that still doesn't give us a way to prove the opposite either.

In fact, we would almost need to have a voice from God (which some claim they have heard) to prove with any certainty that we have free will. Of course many of us would then argue with that voice that if he (God) is real, and knows all things, then he is omnipotent, and must be lying about the free will scenario.

[Just what the hell if free will? An action that is free from influence of another being. It is a social concept. A linguistic term to describe a social situation.]
I'm afraid you need to look up the definition of free will again. It doesn't merely apply to social situations - it applies to choices made by any living creature that attempts to decide, instinctively or consciously, how to react in any given situation.

As you probably know mantus, I dispute your first premise. It assumes that only events can cause other events, but I maintain that agents can also cause events.

Francisco,

I'll support your idea that we much first disprove free will simply because both your and my question will lead the same outcome.

As I stated, randome events do not give us free will at all. Infact to me, random events and chaos seem less capable of spawning free will. After all, a random or chaotic action has no meaning nor purpose. So while they are certainly free, there is no will behind them.

Indeed I do know the defenition of free will. I am simply stating that the term must have evolved from a very basic idea into what it has become today. While the application of the term expanded it's meaning was never elaborated. Thus we are using a rather base term in very complex arguments.


asairis,

Of course asairis, but an agent causing an uncaused event would make that event meaningless. You proposition grants us freedom, but we would lack will.

If an agent is causing an event, it's not an uncaused event. The phrase "an agent causing an uncaused event" is self-contradictory on its face.

Here's the basic question, boys: After we have been led to the water, whose "will" makes us drink?

Something The Ref posted earlier on this thread sticks with me as one reason people are talking at cross-purposes here:

[The problem here is Too Much Logic. Logic works well on a 2-term basis -- yes/no, on/off, black/white, open/closed. This is the basis of most Western thought. We like to think of ourselves of Logical (and Reasonable) individuals. But what if there were a third term in Logic? Yes/No/Maybe? On/Off/Partial? Black/White/Grey? This would up-end most of our discussion, lead to the possibility of Free Will, and punch a large hole in science as we know it.]

There actually is the "third term" in logic being used in Western thought, and rather than punching a large hole in known science, it was/is the foundation of modern science. It's referred to as inductive or (more recently) as abductive logic. The yes/no logic referred to is deductive logic.

What I see in this discussion is one person arguing from one form and others arguing from the other forms, and often the same person using all forms at once to "prove" that some gut feeling they have is in fact logical.

What form did I just use? God only knows.

asaris,

Truth be told I have no idea what this agent is. I asume you mean consciousness or something along those lines.

No, by agent I mean me. Or you. The idea is that *I* cause my free actions, whatever I might be.

Is being your own agent anything like being your own eye-witness?

Quantum probability breaks determinism. It doesn't break causality in a historic sense, but it does make all systems essentially chaotic over long enough timescales (Note: chaotic and random are not synonyms).

Causality has been traditionally recognized as not sufficient to preclude free will. I suppose one could argue that it's turtles all the way down and the decision making of agents is, ultimately, a mechanical/chemical/physical process... but then we have to get into the whole observer phenomenon, which gets kind of messy when the oberver IS the thing being observed.

Also, the focus on the mechanical aspect overlooks that the question is not so much about what does happen as what could happen. Though Alice always chooses vanilla and Bob always chooses chocolate with 100% predictablity, this does not prevent them from choosing differently the next time they're in the ice cream shop. They won't choose differently, but that's a fundamentally different statement from saying they can't choose differently.

[Quantum probability breaks determinism. It doesn't break causality in a historic sense, but it does make all systems essentially chaotic over long enough timescales (Note: chaotic and random are not synonyms).]

From Computer Desktop Encyclopedia: chaos = The science that deals with the underlying order of the seemingly random nature of the universe.

No, chaotic and random are not synonyms, but use of one doesn't preclude the use of the other in making a generalization.

[Also, the focus on the mechanical aspect overlooks that the question is not so much about what does happen as what could happen. ]

To nitpick in return, the question was definitely about what does happen as opposed not only to what could happen but what should happen. Predictability and predeterminability are not synonyms either. They can be used in the same sentence, but not interchangeably.

Otherwise the main point made that "Quantum probability breaks determinism" is dead on target.

Well, the original question was whether we have free will or an omniscience being. I haven't see where anyone has explicitly explained that one doesn't preclude the other.

I think Asaris has taken that position, although I don't buy his argument. As to what you have said, I think we may disagree on the definition of omniscience as it applies to a divine being.

The definition you may be using is: God can know in advance what I will do, even though free will in the fullest sense of the phrase does exist. God somehow has a "middle knowledge" - that is, knowledge of how free agents will act in any given circumstances.

However the definition that most of the discussion of free will has revolved around is that, simply put, God knows everything that will be.

And in your original post, you referred to determinism, which has been defined as:
The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs.

So if you are in fact not referring to determinism in the same vein as omniscience, then you have added something valuable to this discussion.

That said, I don't think the alternate definition of omniscience is persuasive, as it's not how most religions would define the fundamental nature of their deity.

Are you not the sum of various causes?

First off, I'm not using omniscience as it applies to a divine being... because "divine being" implies other characteristics (e.g. omnipotence) that merely serve to confuse the issue. The being in question is omniscient. It knows everything. Simultaneously and atemporally. Past, Present, Future. This knowledge has no impact on our free will. This omniscient being may know than Bob won't choose vanilla ice cream, but that is not the same as saying Bob can't choose vanilla.

We can talk about omnipotent beings, omnicient and omnipotent beings that just watch, omnicient and omnipotent beings that meddle, omnicient and omnipotent universe creating beings, etc. and how each combination of traits would impact actual freedom of will (in all cases we would still appear to have free will), but we need to keep each case seperate.

I think is one of those cases where the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts.

This thread actually started with the following caveat: "This discussion is not about the Christian god or Jesus, but about every religion with a supreme, omniscient being."

And you, yourself, wrote: "Well, the original question was whether we have free will or an omniscience being."

So to now say, "I'm not using omniscience as it applies to a divine being" is to be a bit disingenuous.

Then you say: "The being in question is omniscient. It knows everything. Simultaneously and atemporally. Past, Present, Future. This knowledge has no impact on our free will. This omniscient being may know than Bob won't choose vanilla ice cream, but that is not the same as saying Bob can't choose vanilla.?"

Actually that's exactly the same as saying Bob can't choose vanilla. The only way to be sure he won't is to know that he can't, because the choices have already been made in advance. Who made them is another question, but in your scenario, it certainly was not Bob.

Are you sure this is true?

Suppose one is put in a situation to make a choice. Based on one's experience there can only be one outcome. Otherwise you won't be using cognitive judgement. If the choice is random or unpredictable then it looses it's meaning. Then you are not making a choice but playing a lottery in your head.

On the assumption that one has free will, which seems probable (regardless of whether you believe in a supreme being), the freedom relates to the fact it is you that will be making the choice, rather than some force that set things in motion long before your time. Based on your experience, there may be only one outcome (for the sake of argument), but the situation determines that outcome, and you have determined, and thus chosen, by recognizing the particular circumstances involved, what part of your experience to draw from in making the decison as to how to proceed.

When we talk of randomness (or of chaos if you will), it has to do with a different part of the debate, which is whether or not natural law, or the process of cause and effect, allows for other than an inevitable chain of events from whatever we envision as the beginning of our time. Randomness argues against inevitability and puts us in a position where we can be a bit more confident that the ability to make choices in life is ours rather than some unknown force of nature.

Thus if the situation referred to initially did not necessarily come about through predetermination, the choice we made in reacting to it was not necessarily predetermined either.

But if you believe in God, then you have to also consider the possibility that your particular God may have made the choice in advance, and randomness and chaos are perhaps figments of a physicist's imagination. And then you may be back to square one in this debate - and I use the term debate advisedly. :crazy:

I read that as an attempt to prevent this from devolving into a discussion of "Well, the Bible says...", not to try to further detail the attributes of the omniscient being.

Does Alice's knowledge that Bob will choose chocolate restrict Bob's choices? It doesn't.

You find yourself in a Catch-22 as far as the "The only way to be sure he won't is to know that he can't..." assertion goes.
If we treat omniscience as a scaled up version of Alice's knowledge, then Bob still has free will.
If we treat omniscience as a fundamentaly different type of knowledge, it becomes unclear that the "if won't then can't" reasoning applies. Bob's ability to choose vanilla doesn't violate the infalliabilty of omniscience because, though he can choose vanilla, he won't. How do we know he won't? Because we're omniscient.... not because he can't.

This is that confusing the issue problem I talked about before. The "force that set things into motion" and the omniscient being are not necessarily the same. So the fact that an omnicient being knows what you will choose is unrelated to what you can choose.

To affect free will the being has to exert some influence over the decision. Merely knowing the outcome has no impact on the decision, since the being plays no role and does not participate in the decision in any way.

If we're talking about creator gods, then everything subsequent to the creator's choice to make this particular universe at the exclusion of all others renders all apparent choices in the universe subordinate to that first choice. BUT, we're not explicitly talking about creaor gods.

Of course they are related.

A probability assessment scaled up is still a probability assessment. Again you are varying your definitions of omniscience to fit your arguments. And sometimes vice versa.

Tp paraphrase Descarte: I won't, therefore I can't. OR: I can't, therefore I won't.

Your post is replete with non sequiturs. We are at an impasse as far as one of us being able to see the other's point(s). Much less agree with them.