God, Omnipotence and Free Will

[Seven Words]

Welcome back Rus.

It smells of an assumption that only experimental-type knowledge can be admitted as true; that personal experience cannot also reveal objective truth.

They key term there is "objective". Experimental type knowledge IS objective. Does not matter if one is Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, Wiccan, Orthodox, LDS, Santerian, FSM, Asatru, baptist, Taoist, Catholic, whether or not a compound is carcinogenic can be PROVEN. How can one objectively measure anything spiritual? Can't be done. No one has a demonstrable "salvation meter", or "karma sensor". Doesn't mean any given spiritual belief is wrong...simply unproven. Atheism is also not proven....however, there is supporting evidence, in that science has shown the theoretical existence of a Creator/s to be superfluous post-Big Bang. If one uniformly defines Truth as being objective, then it's not an assumption.

[Avatar]

I think personal experience can reveal subjective truth. Objective truth on the other hand requires repeatability.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, it matters enormously whether our universe had a cause. On this hangs the question of the meaning of our lives.

This is what I'm getting at. The meaning of my life does not hang on whether or not there is a creator. My life has meaning. To me, and given by me. Your opinion is that that kind of meaning is valueless. My opinion is that it is of supreme value. Your belief that only meaning given by a being that created us can be of value is just that - your belief. Your opinion. I do not share it. I know it is a truth to you. But that's what I'm saying in this thread; truths that have been revealed to some people via personal revelation are not only non-transferable, but they aren't important. Not to me. I have found answers in non-personal-revelation ways to the questions that have been answered for you via personal revelation.

The other kinds of truths - what substances are safe to eat; how does one avoid death from this or that illness; can I jump from X feet up with a reasonable expectation of walking away from the landing; etc - do not need to be answered via personal revelation. They can be verified objectively.

[Zarathustra]

Still, I can't help noticing how dead the Close has been while I've been gone. maybe ya shoulda given me the Watchie for contributor to the Close....?

You absolutely should have been given a Watchie! If I weren't so apathetic about the whole award process, I would have nominated you. (Edit: woops, I notice you were nominated. I didn't vote for Close categories, only Tank.) You're a thick-skinned S.O.B to take all the pounding you get here.

Yes, it matters enormously whether our universe had a cause. On this hangs the question of the meaning of our lives.

That's a kind of nihilism, to prejudge the question of meaning as only having an answer if the universe had an external cause. This is a common theme with my responses to you: Christian values devalue the world as it really is, by supposing that it can only be valuable by assuming things which go beyond it. Why can't the world--and our lives--be valuable in themselves, without reference to an external cause? Why can't it be precisely as valuable as we decide? I think a self-caused or a causeless universe is even *more* valuable than the artifact of an inexplicable being (who never seems to need an external cause to have meaning . . . curious).

A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist.

To the extent that we judge the universe as it is to be unacceptable, and invent mythologies to "correct" these flaws (mythologies which go into the realm of the supernatural), we are nihilists.

[Vraith]

I'm pretty much with Z on this...but I understand the "something greater to give meaning" urge, too...even if it's separated from religion/god's plan/destiny/fate.
I think it comes from a general feeling [that, for once, is also factually so] that, even if our lives/ambitions/accomplishments/desires are meaningful, they aren't MEANINGFUL...they're short, they're full of failure and pain, even the most successful of us have near-zero chance of being remembered by anyone except close family for even one lifetime past our own, or our actions having effect [even anonymously] even that long. I doubt 1 in a million are remembered by anyone not blood-related for more than a generation, 1 in a billion or more after a couple hundred years [and by then everything they "know" about you is debatable/lost/contextless. [100 years from now, if he's remembered at all by ordinary people, Bill Gates biography will read "Founded Microsoft, helped make computers usable by ordinary people, was very rich...maybe a footnote that he was philanthropic]]
If there is some after-life, all of that changes. [at least from your own, individual perspective...you're still not famous, but you're still around, can enjoy the good memories, and are having a great time if your god was the real one and you followed the rules].

On topic, though [and briefly cuz I've already said it before other places]
I'm not sure Omnipotence affects free will at all, that's just power [unimaginable power, of course, but it's only scale not difference].
Omniscience, on the other hand, is a death blow. If God [or any being] knows, absolutely, your choices in advance then free will is pure illusion, it doesn't matter how much you think, believe, or feel that you're deciding or allowed to decide, it has already been decided in advance.

[Avatar]

All life will inevitably end. It shouldn't be a frightening thought, it should be a liberating one.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

I'm pretty much with Z on this...but I understand the "something greater to give meaning" urge, too...even if it's separated from religion/god's plan/destiny/fate.
I think it comes from a general feeling [that, for once, is also factually so] that, even if our lives/ambitions/accomplishments/desires are meaningful, they aren't MEANINGFUL...they're short, they're full of failure and pain, even the most successful of us have near-zero chance of being remembered by anyone except close family for even one lifetime past our own, or our actions having effect [even anonymously] even that long. I doubt 1 in a million are remembered by anyone not blood-related for more than a generation, 1 in a billion or more after a couple hundred years [and by then everything they "know" about you is debatable/lost/contextless. [100 years from now, if he's remembered at all by ordinary people, Bill Gates biography will read "Founded Microsoft, helped make computers usable by ordinary people, was very rich...maybe a footnote that he was philanthropic]]
If there is some after-life, all of that changes. [at least from your own, individual perspective...you're still not famous, but you're still around, can enjoy the good memories, and are having a great time if your god was the real one and you followed the rules].

Yeah, but that urge/general feeling, which is an ego thing, does not make the kind of meaning that would satisfy it better - or of a higher level, or however we want to word it - than the kind of meaning I give myself. It just means we have an ego. "How can I not be important enough to be remembered forever??" Throw that crap away.

I'm not sure Omnipotence affects free will at all, that's just power [unimaginable power, of course, but it's only scale not difference].
Omniscience, on the other hand, is a death blow. If God [or any being] knows, absolutely, your choices in advance then free will is pure illusion, it doesn't matter how much you think, believe, or feel that you're deciding or allowed to decide, it has already been decided in advance.

Can't there be a difference between knowing what will happen and deciding what will happen? If I had a time-viewer, I could look to November, and see who's going to win the World Series. As it is now, I don't have a time-viewer, so I can't know who will win. How would my knowing remove anybody's free will?

[Orlion]

How would my knowing remove anybody's free will?

Being able to know what people would do would imply that there are specific natural laws that people are doomed to follow. If people's actions are due to natural law and not choice, then there is no freewill. The person knowing doesn't have to orchestrate events, but by knowing what a person will do, you would have provided sufficient evidence that there is no free will.

[Vraith]

Yeah, but that urge/general feeling, which is an ego thing, does not make the kind of meaning that would satisfy it better - or of a higher level, or however we want to word it - than the kind of meaning I give myself. It just means we have an ego. "How can I not be important enough to be remembered forever??" Throw that crap away.

Oh yes, I agree with all that, but for most people [including myself in darker moods] easier said than done.

Can't there be a difference between knowing what will happen and deciding what will happen? If I had a time-viewer, I could look to November, and see who's going to win the World Series. As it is now, I don't have a time-viewer, so I can't know who will win. How would my knowing remove anybody's free will?

There is a difference in action between deciding and just knowing, of course...in the case of a God, big difference between forcing us to sin and allowing us to sin...but in the end, the problem is: if the future is known, absolutely, that means nothing we do is choice...it is set in stone. We don't know the future, we feel like we're choosing, but if you can't change the future, choice is a dream.
But I don't believe that's the case: there is enough "flex" in the universe, because much of what happens is probabalistic, not determined, to allow for free will. Ominiscience makes the flex disappear, however.

[Zarathustra]

How would my knowing remove anybody's free will?

Being able to know what people would do would imply that there are specific natural laws that people are doomed to follow.

I disagree. If we're going to entertain the idea of knowledge of the future--something which violates known physical laws, requiring supernatural prescience--then there is nothing which leads us to suppose that the mere possession of this knowledge entails that the object of this knowledge (i.e. "the future") came about as the product of natural laws. Heck, the knowledge itself doesn't come about from natural laws, so why would it put any constraints upon nature? We're talking about magic. You can't derive any necessity within nature by hypothetical speculation outside the bounds of nature.

If people's actions are due to natural law and not choice, then there is no freewill.

Okay. But there is no evidence that choices are "lawlike" in their unfolding.

The person knowing doesn't have to orchestrate events, but by knowing what a person will do, you would have provided sufficient evidence that there is no free will.

Again, that's like saying a magic carpet proves there is no gravity. Non sequitur.

[aliantha]

Yeah, but that urge/general feeling, which is an ego thing, does not make the kind of meaning that would satisfy it better - or of a higher level, or however we want to word it - than the kind of meaning I give myself. It just means we have an ego. "How can I not be important enough to be remembered forever??" Throw that crap away.

Oh yes, I agree with all that, but for most people [including myself in darker moods] easier said than done.

Really? Maybe I don't have a healthy ego, then, because it doesn't bother me a bit that nothing of me will likely survive when I'm gone.

I mean, some of my DNA will survive in my kids. But as neither of them plans to have kids of their own, even that's chancy.

Maybe it comes from all those years of working in radio news. Talk about an ephemeral business! Not only is it no longer "news" almost immediately, but as soon as you hear it, it's gone. And too, I've lost so much of my writing due to computer crashes and the like.

Anyway, sorry, I'm off the track of the original post. But as a Pagan, I don't have a dog in this hunt (if there's no single God who claims to be omni-anything, the whole free will/determinism argument kind of disappears, y'know?).

[Orlion]

How would my knowing remove anybody's free will?

Being able to know what people would do would imply that there are specific natural laws that people are doomed to follow.

I disagree. If we're going to entertain the idea of knowledge of the future--something which violates known physical laws, requiring supernatural prescience--then there is nothing which leads us to suppose that the mere possession of this knowledge entails that the object of this knowledge (i.e. "the future") came about as the product of natural laws. Heck, the knowledge itself doesn't come about from natural laws, so why would it put any constraints upon nature? We're talking about magic. You can't derive any necessity within nature by hypothetical speculation outside the bounds of nature.

Whether the law is supernatural or natural, it is still law and will still determine the predictable outcome. Otherwise, it isn't law.

If people's actions are due to natural law and not choice, then there is no freewill.

Okay. But there is no evidence that choices are "lawlike" in their unfolding.

Agreed. But if choice does exist, that entails to me that nothing can be omniscience about things that are future. If they are outside of time and know it, that means something outside or within time must determine our actions, otherwise how would that being know with any certainty?

The person knowing doesn't have to orchestrate events, but by knowing what a person will do, you would have provided sufficient evidence that there is no free will.

Again, that's like saying a magic carpet proves there is no gravity. Non sequitur.

I don't follow this line of reason. If you can predict the actions of others, that means that those actions were not predicated on this idea of "choice" since choice (in at least the individual sense) implies that a different action can be followed. When you know what a person is going to do, you are in fact saying that a different action is not viable, it will not happen. And since this is so, there is no choice, ergo, being able to predict actions (I'll add "with certainty") would prove directly that there is no choice.

[Vraith]

Really? Maybe I don't have a healthy ego, then, because it doesn't bother me a bit that nothing of me will likely survive when I'm gone.

Heh...or maybe your ego IS the healthy one, cuz it's adapted happily to the end of you.

But as a Pagan, I don't have a dog in this hunt (if there's no single God who claims to be omni-anything, the whole free will/determinism argument kind of disappears, y'know?).

My dog agrees with your non-dog partly on this. A lack of omni-whatever does open up space for free will. But the whole argument doesn't go away, there are the people who believe in a wholly determined universe without any appeal to anything supernatural. [I'm certainly not one of them, either...I believe in bounded free will: the functioning of natural laws establish borders for choices, but between those borders there are large numbers of choices available [perhaps, near infinite]...analogically, you can't cross the Canadian border north, or the Mexican south...you still have a whole lot of places to see, things to do.

Orlion and Z: maybe I'm mis-reading, but it seems to me you have the same conclusions, but are debating the mechanics/reasoning behind natural/supernatural and how they can/can't affect each other?

[Zarathustra]

Whether the law is supernatural or natural, it is still law and will still determine the predictable outcome. Otherwise, it isn't law.

I have no idea what a supernatural law is, or why we should assume one is involved in foreknowledge. If we're talking about something supernatural, why would it be constrained in any way, much less by a law?

Agreed. But if choice does exist, that entails to me that nothing can be omniscience about things that are future.

Well, I agree that omniscience is impossible, but I believe this for more reasons than the existence of freewill. There are other ways in which the universe is not deterministic (chaos, randomness, quantum uncertainty, etc.). Any knowledge of the future--from either inside or outside the universe--would necessarily have to arise from something other than knowing deterministic mechanisms which lead to events A and B, if there are no such deterministic mechanisms (and in the case of freewill, this is precisely the issue in question, so it's not at all obvious or logically necessary).

If they are outside of time and know it, that means something outside or within time must determine our actions, otherwise how would that being know with any certainty?

Foreknowledge does not imply knowing that something (like a law) determines A . . . only knowing that A will occur. This isn't necessarily due to insufficient knowledge of a law, because if A isn't determined by a law, there is no law to know.

If you can predict the actions of others, that means that those actions were not predicated on this idea of "choice" since choice (in at least the individual sense) implies that a different action can be followed.

Knowledge of the future doesn't mean that a different choice couldn't have been chosen, but merely which choice will actually be chosen. The knowledge of this fact doesn't eliminate the possible alternatives any more than the fact that one choice is actually chosen eliminates the possibility from those alternatives.

When you know what a person is going to do, you are in fact saying that a different action is not viable, it will not happen.

No. "Not viable" does't necessarily means "it will not happen." Alternatives fail to happen all the time, and it's not always because they aren't viable. A lot of the time (like with choices), it's because they're not chosen. So an event can be impossible for reasons that have nothing to do with choice, and it can also be possible--and yet fail to happen--because another choice was made. The foreknowledge of the choice doesn't alter the situation one bit. It doesn't alter the viability of the unchosen events, becuase the viability of those events never relied upon someone choosing them. Their potentiality relies upon other reasons (like whether they violate the laws of physics, etc.).

So knowing what a person will do is not the same as saying a different action is not viable, even though it is saying that it will not happen. Saying, "it will not happen," has no effect whatsoever on the outcome or the factors which make something viable.

Let's imagine that someone says, "Team X will not win Saturday." Normally, we call this a guess. But let's say they guess correctly. Did that correct guess affect the outcome? Not in the slightest. Now imagine that they continued making correct guesses, every single game. At some point, we'd have to say they have knowledge, and weren't merely making guesses, because correctly guessing every game from here to eternity is impossible. While their success rate would go up, there is nothing involved in this process which affects the external factors that make events viable or possible.

It seems to me that you're transferring the impossibility of omniscience to freewill, by entertaining the existence of this impossible thing (omniscience) in the first place. When you insist upon "inserting" impossible things into reality, paradox starts squeezing out through the cracks.

Magical knowledge can no more reveal the existence of unsuspected lawful behavior in choice, than magical carpets can reveal the existence of unlawful behavior in gravity. It's a violation of the way the universe works, and thus confers no logical necessity upon reality.

Let's turn this backwards: do you think everything happens due to adherence to underlying laws? If so, then wouldn't it be possible (in principle) to know the future if you can know these laws? If that's the case, then wouldn't this knowledge of the future mean that there never were any other possible ways for the universe to unfold? That no other possible state is even viable? I'm not sure what kind of world that would be. How things like quantum randomness could exist? Our physical laws are the parameters of possiblity. They're meaningless if only one possibility is viable.

[Orlion]

Orlion and Z: maybe I'm mis-reading, but it seems to me you have the same conclusions, but are debating the mechanics/reasoning behind natural/supernatural and how they can/can't affect each other?

I'm sure that's part of it I like to be as thorough with my definitions as possible, and I imagine Z does as well.... could be that once we've calibrated our language, we'll find out we are arguing for the same thing

Incidentally, let's get some of those definitions out of the way:

Omni-anything: Means "ALL" whatever. For example, omniscience means that you know ALL, if one example exists that there is doubt in that knowledge, you are not omniscience.

Supernatural: Some mechanism outside of and unexplained by experimental (natural) sciences.

Law: This is tricky, sense when I speak of Law in the philosophical sense, I do not mean it in the legal sense. In the philosophical sense, it's something that must be followed, as a result it's these Laws that shape reality around us, be they natural or supernatural. Because of this characteristic, if one knows these Laws accurate conclusions can be drawn as to what may happen with respect to those Laws. In my opinion, this is true irregardless of whether the Law is Natural or Supernatural (of course, then the issue becomes how we can determine Supernatural Law).

[Orlion]

It seems to me that you're transferring the impossibility of omniscience to freewill, by entertaining the existence of this impossible thing (omniscience) in the first place. When you insist upon "inserting" impossible things into reality, paradox starts squeezing out through the cracks.

I only transfer the impossibility of omniscience to show that its existence creates paradoxes and would be a false quality of anything as a result (I'm arguing ad absurdum, I think it's called).

I shall respond to the rest of your post later, when I can give it the time it deserves

[Vraith]

Let's turn this backwards: do you think everything happens due to adherence to underlying laws? If so, then wouldn't it be possible (in principle) to know the future if you can know these laws? If that's the case, then wouldn't this knowledge of the future mean that there never were any other possible ways for the universe to unfold? That no other possible state is even viable? I'm not sure what kind of world that would be. How things like quantum randomness could exist? Our physical laws are the parameters of possiblity. They're meaningless if only one possibility is viable.

This is precisely what I'M saying, even if Orlion isn't..
Starting in the middle: actual knowledge of the future, whether naturally or supernaturally obtainable, would in absolute fact, mean there were no other possible ways for the future to unfold, no other state viable.
But I deny [as you seem to also] that that is the case. Only things like chaos, the quantum, the probable but not definitive nature of "Laws" allow for free will. Even those things/forces that are constant in themselves become probabilistic when interacting with other things/forces. The future is unknowable, even in principle.

[Fist and Faith]

There are those who say we don't actually know that free will exists. Loremaster has always argued against it. There is no mechanism of free will, eh? Absolutely true. I don't argue with him because I have anything to back up my position. I only argue with him because I believe I can feel my own free will. Much like rus' personal revelation idea. You can't tell me I do not know what I know. Lots of contemplation, self-examination, and reading have made me reconsider exactly what it is, but I'm convinced I have it. Still, maybe Lore is right. So here we are arguing about how something that may or may not exist - omniscience - might make it impossible. Double blind argument.

It also occurs to me that, if there's an omniscient being who can look at the arrangement of every single particle and erg (whatever) of energy in all of reality, and understand every possible aspect of how they can all act and interact, so that it can tell where every single particle and erg will be at any future point... IOW, if it knows all aspects of the future... OK, that might mean Lore is right. No free will. So if this being is giving us crap for any sins we commit, maybe it's because this being is as helpless in the face of it all as we are.

[wayfriend]

FF, your point reminds me of the idea that we might contain a magic something that can cause something to happen that would otherwise not happen. That can produce an effect that is not predictable by following a chain of events from the beginning of time. Something which can create something new in the universe. And, therefore, something that partakes of god.

[Vraith]

So if this being is giving us crap for any sins we commit, maybe it's because this being is as helpless in the face of it all as we are.

I've only run across this idea once or twice before, and it scares the CRAP out of me if true...a punishing [yes I know, loving too...but punishing is part of it] God, helpless in the face of it's own creation. [SRD's creator has some commonality with this, (being fictional for one thing, in my opinion) except not utterly helpless, doesn't seem to punish, and admits s/he is partly responsible for the bad stuff]