Originally posted by Ms.Marvel
if god comes to me today and says "you will definitely jump out of your window tomorrow at 5 PM on the dot", does that mean that i will definitely jump out of my window at that time?
I will give a limited yes. If he is saying you made that decision, then yes, you made that decision. Of your own free will, but the yes is limited because you are talking about a contrived situation where God DID interfere with your decision.
I have read enough science fiction to know that the second people become aware of the future, it gets weird, but in this case, this omniscient source NEVER shares that info with us. So it makes no difference in our actions.
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Originally posted by truejedi
What i'm getting from Autokrat is though, that if someone knows (for sure) what choice someone is going to make, its like they never made the choice at all. That simply doesn't make any sense.
Here is the thing. That "choice" that you mentioned? It is already decided. There is absolutely no possibility that anything will change its result. You are going to make that decision, no matter what.
There really is no wiggle room. Your opinion has no bearing on what the outcome will be--that decision is simply the way things are going to be. Any other interpretation is doublethink. Within a logical framework there is no way for something to be both open to your discretion and already determined. If the choice you are going to make is known with total accuracy then you have no choice at all.
if god comes to me today and says "you will definitely jump out of your window tomorrow at 5 PM on the dot", does that mean that i will definitely jump out of my window at that time?
Either way, him knowing the result means that it is already decided.
+_____________________+
Ryan:
When you see a soccer player kicking a ball, do you see indeterministic forces which lead to the ball being randomly moved forward to an undetermined location?
The same principle (I think?) applies to fusing the QM and Einsteinian models. The Standard model seems to be the best bet at this point.
Originally posted by truejedi
I will give a limited yes. If he is saying you made that decision, then yes, you made that decision. Of your own free will, but the yes is limited because you are talking about a contrived situation where God DID interfere with your decision.I have read enough science fiction to know that the second people become aware of the future, it gets weird, but in this case, this omniscient source NEVER shares that info with us. So it makes no difference in our actions.
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That the information is available to us is irrelevant. The fact is, under your model it is a guaranteed fact that tomorrow at noon I will or will not be eating peanut butter. I do not have the ability to alter this state in any way.
That limitation is why omniscience precludes free will.
Originally posted by Red Nemesis
No one is talking about how this influences our actions. This is about the causes of actions.That the information is available to us is irrelevant. The fact is, under your model it is a guaranteed fact that tomorrow at noon I will or will not be eating peanut butter. I do not have the ability to alter this state in any way.
That limitation is why omniscience precludes free will.
This is actually easy, but I guess if you haven't given it much thought, it can be confusing.
If you don't want to be eating the peanut butter at noon tomorrow, you won't be. the omniscient source would know, in that case, that you won't be eating it at noon. Only if you decide to eat it, will the source know you are going to make that decision.
Originally posted by truejedi
exactly, we cant do anything differently, other than the choice we make. not that complicated.
WTF?
You just admitted that we cannot do anything differently other than the choice we make. You just shot yourself in the foot.
Originally posted by truejedi
come again
Ryan summed it up fairly well. People don't act in the framework that we have no free will and neither does society. If we did then society would collapse. To survive, we are determined to punish criminals.
Originally posted by truejedi
right.. this doesnt help your argument in any way. In every scenario, YOU make the decision. God just knows what you will choose. He doesn't influence your choice.
For someone accusing someone else of not knowing what he is talking about: You are having a difficult time grasping a simple concept.
My physical body (ergo, me, the self, the I) makes decision A because it could do nothing else. This is not Free Will. Or, if this is your definition of Free Will, then it has little to no relation with Free Will in a religious context.
Originally posted by Autokrat
WTF?You just admitted that we cannot do anything differently other than the choice we make. You just shot yourself in the foot.
Ryan summed it up fairly well. People don't act in the framework that we have no free will and neither does society. If we did then society would collapse. To survive, we are determined to punish criminals.
We don't act in the framework that we have no free will, because we do in fact, have free will. Saying we have no free will is just a cheap way of removing personal responsibility.
My physical body (ergo, me, the self, the I) makes decision A because it could do nothing else. This is not Free Will. Or, if this is your definition of Free Will, then it has little to no relation with Free Will in a religious context. [/B]
Your physical body makes decision A because it WANTS to make decision A. You are perfectly capable of picking B if you want to.
Originally posted by Autokrat
We have the illusion of choice. If the choice is already known, already determined by preexistent variables, then what is the point of choice other than a fabricated illusion to rationalize our existence?
The fact that God knows, means that the choice was already made by the variables leading up to the choice.
Also, the problem is we seem to disagree on the definition of free will. You're trying to focus on it from the perspective of a higher being which would be illogical since it is you the human making the choice, and you the human who doesn't know the outcome.
Plus god is omniscient, so from the second he created reality he knew exactly how everything would turn out and in fact god could have changed that when he created things, becuase as determinism states, we are affected by the enviroment just as much as we affect it. Autokrat was right with his domino example; He was their before the dominoes, he set them up in an order and he made them fall. We're the dominoes and we have no choice but to fall.
On an unrelated note, TVTropes suggested this to me. And I don't know if I should bother. Anyone read it who can comment?
DS you have nothing more than doublethink. If God knows the choice you're going to make then it is already made. If it is already made then the outcome is not in doubt. If the outcome is not in doubt then you have no decision to make.
Slipping out of any of these steps requires you forgetting the fact that you've evaded anything.
Originally posted by Red Nemesis
DS you have nothing more than doublethink. If God knows the choice you're going to make then it is already made. If it is already made then the outcome is not in doubt. If the outcome is not in doubt then you have no decision to make.Slipping out of any of these steps requires you forgetting the fact that you've evaded anything.
Not really understanding this. I don't pretend to have any philosophical take on these things but in Judaism, God knows that choices you're going. However, you still have the choice to make it because you don't know what choice you are going to make and you don't know the consequences of that choice.
I think we're just going back and forth because you're seeing it from the omniscient perspective and I see it from a human perspective. The fact that God knows what you're going to choose doesn't preclude the fact that YOU can still make a choice.
Originally posted by Red Nemesis
DS you have nothing more than doublethink. If God knows the choice you're going to make then it is already made. If it is already made then the outcome is not in doubt. If the outcome is not in doubt then you have no decision to make.
You knowing something doesn't mean you MADE it so. The outcome is only not in doubt to GOD. To you,as a person, it is completley in doubt.
God didn't determine the choice you are making, he is only aware that you are making it.
Originally posted by truejedi
You knowing something doesn't mean you MADE it so. The outcome is only not in doubt to GOD. To you,as a person, it is completley in doubt.
God didn't determine the choice you are making, he is only aware that you are making it.
Exactly. I remember this being the issue in philosophy 101 between the athiests/philosophy majors, and the religious crowd. I'm not sure why one would argue from an omniscient point of view, seeing as it has no basis for us human beings because we don't KNOW..
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Exactly. I remember this being the issue in philosophy 101 between the athiests/philosophy majors, and the religious crowd. I'm not sure why one would argue from an omniscient point of view, seeing as it has no basis for us human beings because we don't KNOW..
DS, the question of us knowing is irrelevant. To us it seems like we have free will. This is true both in determinism and its alternatives. No one is disputing the sensation of making choices. The question is about if those choices are free or if they are instead the inexorable result of the workings of the universe.
That question is one that is much harder to answer. For our purposes, lets assume a divine being that is omniscient. Any other qualities are periphery for the moment. This god has access to knowledge about the future that is absolute. The future is immutable and unchanging. In effect, it has already happened. I will be eating peanut butter for lunch tomorrow. God knows it. I could no more choose Turkey than an ant could do my homework. This situation arises because the state of my lunch tomorrow is already known. It may not be known to me (giving rise to the impression of making a decision) but it is known to someone.
If the matter is already settled then how am I making a decision? This is why omniscience is incompatible with free will.
Originally posted by truejedi
Not true in this instance. We are dealing with sentient beings, not dominoes. If a dominoe had the ability to step out of the way, and chose to do so, we have a completely different result.
Tj, that is the entire point of the debate.
We are looking at the question of whether or not human consciousness is a domino.
Asserting the opposite is the weakest form of argument.
What was that about Free Will again?
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
[Psalm 139:16]
Consider the commentary on that verse by Rick Warren from his book, Purpose Driven Life. (Chapter 2)
Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death.
Regardless of the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you.
God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates. Every plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a purpose in mind.
A highly respected theologian apparently believes God decided everything, which makes sense in the context of an Omniscient, Omnipotent deity. This is why Calvinists believe in Predestination, because Calvin looked at the logic of all this and realized that there was no way to reconcile Free Will with an all knowing God.
What I am trying to get my head around is how the two of your can blithely call this Free Will. God created everything, decided everything, and knows everything. All the choices have already been made. All that humans are doing is walking through the motions. Yet you two try and stand on the argument that we are still making a choice because we don't know what is going to happen?
Don't you understand? It doesn't matter if we don't know what will happen. The fact that a perfect being with absolute knowledge already does means that there can be no deviance. I may not know the exact curves on the water slide, but I still have no choice but to slide down them. I can't decide to go a different direction because its not possible.