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Author Topic:   Free will vs Omniscience
PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 937 of 1444 (880106)
07-29-2020 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 936 by Stile
07-29-2020 2:31 PM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
It’s easy to come up with scenarios, the problem is making them relevant to the discussion. If a believer wants to say that your views are what he believes that’s a lot more relevant than a scenario that maybe nobody at all accepts.
quote:
What if God creates a thought-experiment-universe that completely/exactly mirrors our universe (along with our free-willed choices)... but without physically creating that universe until all recursive-iterations are completed within the thought-experiment? And then, once all recursive-iterations are competed... He then creates the universe.
That is God knowing all our decisions before creating the universe, which is what you were trying to avoid.
quote:
To me... in order to continue the "integrity" of free-choice... it would only be allowed to be done once.
That is, let's say in God's thought-experiment recursions... He happens along some free-willed choices of humans that He doesn't like... so he does it again to see if things change... and they do... this, to me, kills what I'm thinking of as "free-choice" if God creates the 2nd, alterered-towards-God's-preferences universe instead of the initial as-originally-freely-chosen universe.
I don’t think that helps. God still chooses to create a universe knowing what will happen. Even if he’s holding himself to an arbitrary rule that once he gets started he has to go all the way, he’s still responsible. And - this just occurred to me - it makes him fallible. Which is another thing that believers generally refuse to accept.
quote:
Is my choice freely made or not?
Surely, it's controlled by God here in some way - but in what way does it matter?
If, when it was run again, I actually did freely choose white over pink the second time... isn't that still a "free choice" no matter if God "chooses" to create that universe?
If God is rerunning things until you choose white then it’s a forced choice and not really free. You aren’t allowed to choose pink lemonade.
But I don’t really argue about freedom, I argue about responsibility and that’s what believers don’t like. They want God to be unimaginably great and perfect but they don’t want to blame him for anything they consider bad.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 936 by Stile, posted 07-29-2020 2:31 PM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 938 by Stile, posted 07-29-2020 3:16 PM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 939 of 1444 (880108)
07-29-2020 3:46 PM
Reply to: Message 938 by Stile
07-29-2020 3:16 PM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
quote:
Yes, God would know all our decisions "before creating the universe" (physically), but He would not know all our decisions before we made them - which is what I was trying to preserve
That assumes that the thought-experiment versions of us, are us, despite not actually existing. Since I disagree with that I have to disagree with you and insist that in that scenario God does know our decisions before we made them and chose to do so.
quote:
Responsible for creating the universe? Pain and suffering? Joy and exhilaration? Death and destruction?
Yes, if that's what you're saying - I would agree that God would still be responsible for all these things, in this scenario.
Responsible for everything in this universe, including our decisions. God knowingly chose all of them and is therefore responsible.
I won’t quote the rest because I largely agree with it.
And I think it is especially true of the Jewish-Christian-Islamic God who started off as just one of the Canaanite pantheon, chosen by the ancestors of the Jews to be their patron deity (just as Chemosh was patron of the Moabites).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 938 by Stile, posted 07-29-2020 3:16 PM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 940 by Stile, posted 07-29-2020 4:13 PM PaulK has replied
 Message 941 by jar, posted 07-29-2020 4:13 PM PaulK has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 942 of 1444 (880111)
07-29-2020 4:19 PM
Reply to: Message 940 by Stile
07-29-2020 4:13 PM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
quote:
But, if your disagreement lies upon the inability to accept made-up abilities of a made-up God in a made-up scenario...
I don't see any reason to come up with a more convincing explanation.
But there’s a fundamental contradiction in the scenario. The whole point of the thought experiment is that it isn’t real, our universe does not exist and hence we don’t either. So I think we are getting into logical impossibility here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 940 by Stile, posted 07-29-2020 4:13 PM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 944 by Stile, posted 07-30-2020 8:17 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 947 of 1444 (880191)
07-30-2020 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 944 by Stile
07-30-2020 8:17 AM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
quote:
Is there?
I don't understand where the contradiction is.
I did explain it.
quote:
The point of this idea is for God to be "all knowing" (at a minimum - within our universe) and also have us retain free-will (by God 'not-knowing' the outcome of our decisions while going through the iterations of our universe depending on how many interventions He's going to make.)
It seems to me that you proposed a scenario that avoided God knowing everything about our universe before it was created. When I pointed out that it implied that God wouldn’t know everything about our universe until some time (in God’s perspective) after it was created you proposed this new scenario - which has God knowing everything about our universe before it was created.
Free will is not really an issue I argue about in this context.
quote:
This idea that the thought experiment "isn't real" is yours and has no grounds in the idea.
The idea that it isn’t real is inherent in the fact that it is a thought experiment rather than the creation of a universe.
quote:
Why can't it "be real?" That is, why can't it be an exact match of what we actually would freely choose when materially created?
I’m not using your rather idiosyncratic idea of real. I am using the fact that it is a thought experiment and the universe is only being simulated, not actually existing.
If you want it to be real you have to have an actual universe instead of a thought experiment.
(I will note as a side point that libertarian free will would make the thought experiment useless since people in our universe might then decide differently than the versions of them in the thought experiment. While that doesn’t affect my views there are plenty of believers who insist on libertarian free will).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 944 by Stile, posted 07-30-2020 8:17 AM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 949 by Stile, posted 07-31-2020 9:21 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 950 of 1444 (880238)
07-31-2020 10:28 AM
Reply to: Message 949 by Stile
07-31-2020 9:21 AM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
quote:
Yes - but "universe being created" no longer matters in respect to free will if we move the "universe's free-willed decisions being created" to another point in God's time.
Why would it?
Because God chooses to create a universe where those decisions will inevitably be made. How God happens to know doesn’t matter. God made the choice of how the actual universe would go, and bears responsibility for that decision.
quote:
It isn't?
Nope. Haven’t you noticed my focus on God’s responsibility?
quote:
Then perhaps you are talking about "a contradiction" to something that is irrelevant to the point I'm making?
The contradiction was your assertion that God would not know our decisions before we made them - despite knowing them before creating the universe. If God knows our decisions before arranging our actual existence then obviously he knows them before we make them.
quote:
The idea that it isn’t real is inherent in the fact that it is a thought experiment rather than the creation of a universe.
If the thought experiment includes the real free will decisions as decided by the real free willed inhabitants... and it's just the physical parts of the universe that aren't real yet... this, again, removes the contradiction.
Well, no, it doesn’t. We can’t make our decisions before we exist - the imagined entities of the thought experiment are not our actual selves (And even if you assume that identity, what would be the point of us existing again in this universe replaying the same decisions all over again?)
quote:
Nope
The point, and my question, is: Why are you insisting on this?
Yes. The whole point of using a thought experiment relies on that distinction. So you are insisting on it.
quote:
Why can't an imaginary God, that already has the imaginary-and-impossible-to-explain power of "creating universes" also have the imaginary-and-impossible-to-explain power of "creating a thought experiment universe that contains all real free will decisions of a soon-to-be-created physically real universe?"
That is not what I am objecting to at all. I am insisting that the thought experiment universe is not the actual universe (which is part of your idea). The imagined people in it are not actual people. Therefore God knows the decisions of the actual people in the actual universe before the actual people in the actual universe make them.
quote:
That's the "magic" of this power of God's... the thought-experiment free will decisions ARE the "real free will decisions of the people as created in the physical universe" therefore, it's impossible for them to be different. The "real physical universe" is just a physical playing out of the people's "real free willed decisions."
How is that possible if the decision is inherently unpredictable?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 949 by Stile, posted 07-31-2020 9:21 AM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 972 by Stile, posted 08-04-2020 9:34 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 978 of 1444 (880384)
08-04-2020 12:00 PM
Reply to: Message 972 by Stile
08-04-2020 9:34 AM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
quote:
But God did not make the choice of how the actual universe would go.
Sure he did. He knew how it would go before creating it.
quote:
Responsibility does not necessarily remove free will.
I repeat that I’m talking about responsibility instead of free will. Can we please not go around in circles?
quote:
Not at all.
That’s obviously untrue. We can’t make decisions before we exist. Only things that exist can do anything,
quote:
If we are making it up that God can create universes... than we can also make up that God's process for this creation involves identifying our real, actual free-willed choices before we physically exist.
Which is not at all the issue.
quote:
If it is possible (somehow, somewhere...) for God to identify our actual free-willed choices before we physically exist, and then create the physical universe based on those free-willed choices that we made.... then, our free will is preserved.
But that isn’t anything I’ve argued against so what is the point of dragging it up?
quote:
What if the thought experiment is the actual universe, just not in physical form?
That this universe is just the physical form of that actual universe?
Then the actual universe would be created at the start of the thought experiment in contradiction to your scenario.
quote:
How is that possible if the decision is inherently unpredictable?
Because it comes from the free-willed choosers, not God. God simply requests the information, and gets it from us.
Perhaps you think there is some sort of "time-based issue" here - but what if God has a way around it that we cannot explain right not?
The first sentence is a non-sequitur. The second is impossible. The time-based issue is introduced by you by insisting that the thought experiment precedes the creation of the universe.
You really need to work on producing a coherent scenario rather than assuming that you can just introduce anything you feel like. Making up nonsense is just making up nonsense.
quote:
What if God actually can get the information from the real, actual us... and then create the physical universe?
Either we exist to get the information from - and the universe too - which contradicts your scenario, or we don’t exist and it’s impossible to get the information from us for that reason.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 972 by Stile, posted 08-04-2020 9:34 AM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 990 by Stile, posted 08-06-2020 2:19 PM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1326 of 1444 (882859)
10-22-2020 8:23 AM
Reply to: Message 990 by Stile
08-06-2020 2:19 PM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
Missed this but I want to reply, so...
quote:
You're making one really big mistake, and riding it out to make all the other mistakes you're confusing:
We’ll see who is making the really big mistakes.
Remember, my position is that if God creates a universe, knowing everything that will happen in it, then God has primary responsibility for those events.
quote:
That's like saying you made the choice to have a blue room if I picked the colour and you simply painted the room.
Well, that’s obviously false. Knowing in advance is not the same as not knowing in advance. So there is one really big - and obvious mistake on your part.
quote:
So - if we make the choices of our free will, and therefore God does not choose how the actual universe will go...
And God merely creates the physical universe according to how our free wills decided how the actual universe will go...
Neither of these is the case in your scenario. In your scenario God ran a simulation and then chose to actualise that simulation. In doing that God chose that the events that occurred in the simulation should occur in reality. So God did clearly choose how the actual universe would go.
quote:
How are you then saying God made the choice of how the actual universe would go?
By choosing to actualise the simulation. That is absolutely clear.
quote:
You're playing semantics with the words.
You're taking "God made the universe - therefore, God decides all things in the universe" and applying it to my statements of "God made the universe, however, within that universe God did not decide all things, we decided our own free-willed choices."
This is an outright falsehood. All I am doing is pointing out the implications of your scenario.
quote:
Just because "God made the universe - therefore, God decides all things in the universe" is an easy and (perhaps) popular way to think of God creating universes does not mean that all universes must be created in this fashion.
But that is not what I am saying. You are leaving out the whole question of certain foreknowledge, despite the fact that you intentionally introduced that element and in spite of the fact that it is an essential part of the assignment of responsibility. Indeed, we had already agreed that simple creation without understanding the consequences is different.
quote:
Clearly - you're wrong, and it's just your insistence of "what you know of reality" that is blocking your ability to imagine a God with powers such as the ones I'm describing.
Since you are unable even to accurately represent my position and your objections fail to address it, it is clear that the problem is yours.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 990 by Stile, posted 08-06-2020 2:19 PM Stile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1327 by Phat, posted 10-22-2020 10:10 AM PaulK has replied
 Message 1343 by Stile, posted 10-23-2020 1:12 PM PaulK has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1329 of 1444 (882862)
10-22-2020 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 1327 by Phat
10-22-2020 10:10 AM


Re: Introducing An Old Argument Revisited
quote:
Why?
Because God knowingly decided that those things would happen, and as a consequence they inescapably will.
Given that, how could God not be responsible? Are you going to argue that God can’t understand what he’s doing?
quote:
when it is we who should be required to be responsible?
For what? God’s decisions made long before we were born?
quote:
And one would think that part of what our responsibility entails is to acknowledge that God is in a position over us and not something to be defined by us.
This is incoherent.
quote:
Why must certain foreknowledge eliminate our responsibility?
I didn’t say that it was eliminated, just that it was secondary to the responsibility of the primary decision-maker - whose decisions came first and were made in full understanding of the consequences.
quote:
In theory, it should be irrelevant to us what God knows and doesn't know.
It cannot be when discussing this subject because it is one of the most relevant issues.
quote:
Whether or not He smites us out of existence or not is beyond our control anyway and for us to hold Him accountable would only hypothetically be logical if we had a relationship with Him and knew our place rather than us arbitrarily setting the ground rules of the relationship.
There is no problem with addressing the question of responsibility as a hypothetical.
We do not have a duty to be sycophants. If you insist we do, you paint God as a tyrant. And you know my feelings about that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1327 by Phat, posted 10-22-2020 10:10 AM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1348 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 2:58 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1349 of 1444 (882890)
10-24-2020 3:19 AM
Reply to: Message 1348 by Phat
10-24-2020 2:58 AM


Re: Cosmic Battles
quote:
How do we know that our actions and choices don't play a role in the outcome? Whether He foreknows it or not is none of our business. Our business is to merely try and do our best. Whether that action in time reflects on His foreknowledge in eterntity is outside of our knowledge anyway
If our actions and choices are predetermined by God they are clearly subordinate to his decision. That is more than foreknowledge,
quote:
No. I am merely arguing that the focus is to be on our responsibility given what we know. It is irrelevant what He knows and is outside of our power to judge, influence or change...apart from our behavior and choice of actions
Obviously it IS relevant to the question of responsibility.
quote:
In addition, suppose that God allowed Satan to exist and thus we are in a universe with the free choice to internalize Gods Spirit or listen to the other spirits. The choice then again becomes ours.
In the scenario we are discussing God has already decided our free choices.
quote:
God is only responsible for allowing evil to exist, but it couyld be argued that He did that to give us a choice and to allow us to choose Him rather than be manditorily forced to accept Him. It also gets Him off the hook for evil...apart from allowing it to manifest.
If you are proposing a different scenario, you are the one engaging in irrelevancies. If you are not then you are simply ignoring the issues. Either way it changes nothing.
quote:
I would argue that we are not necessarily sycophants towards God. In fact, such behavior would lean more towards the evil side.
I was referring to your attempts to deny God’s responsibility even when God clearly does have the primary responsibility. Again either you are proposing a different scenario or ignoring the issues in the scenario under discussion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1348 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 2:58 AM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1350 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 3:36 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1351 of 1444 (882892)
10-24-2020 3:46 AM
Reply to: Message 1350 by Phat
10-24-2020 3:36 AM


Re: Cosmic Battles
quote:
Well in a grand cosmic sense, God is responsible for everything. The only question left is whether or not we have free wI’ll
Free will is a rather slippery term with more than one meaning. The real question is to what extent God has predetermined our choices. If God has done that, then God has the primary responsibility even if we have some form of free will.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1350 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 3:36 AM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1352 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 3:54 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1353 of 1444 (882894)
10-24-2020 3:57 AM
Reply to: Message 1352 by Phat
10-24-2020 3:54 AM


Re: Cosmic Battles
However, if God chooses to create a particular universe, knowing in advance everything that will happen in it (including all the choices made by the inhabitants) then God has predetermined everything that will happen in that universe. That is the essential point being argued.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1352 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 3:54 AM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1354 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 4:19 AM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 1356 of 1444 (882897)
10-24-2020 5:01 AM
Reply to: Message 1354 by Phat
10-24-2020 4:19 AM


Re: Cosmic Battles
quote:
OK, but its a nonsensical argument to be made by us IF in fact we seek no relationship with this God
That is obviously wrong. Certainly we can look at theological beliefs and examine their implications, and if people are claiming that their theology is true it is something that should be done.
quote:
God is gonna do what He is goona do and we have no power to change it
What God actually does or does not do is not the point. The point is to examine the theology.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1354 by Phat, posted 10-24-2020 4:19 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
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