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Ana
King of the Jungle
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1566
Location: BC
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 Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| P1234567890 wrote: | | RevJP wrote: | | P, what I'm not understanding is how you equate knowledge with compulsion? Because God knows something somehow means we do not have the freedom to choose? How does that work exactly? How does one's knowledge equal another's lack of autonomy? |
If I absolutely *KNOW* that you're going to have toast for breakfast tomorrow, then it means that you will definitely have toast. When tomorrow morning comes around and you're trying to 'decide' what to have for breakfast, you will have to have toast, and there is no way you will have the freedom to not choose toast, since I already foretold / foresaw / knew that that was what you were going to do.
I think that knowledge really does imply compulsion in this case. If God knows that you're going to do something, then you will do that thing, and you won't be able to exercise your power to choose otherwise, because if you did, it would mean that God is wrong, which contradicts His omniscience. |
Alright, P, if there is a way for some entity to *know* what you will eat for breakfast tomorrow (for example), then scientifically, there is a way for the future information to get somehow to that entity, right? Otherwise this entity doesn't really *know* - it's just guessing (possibly with a very high probability of being correct). Suppose you go out for dinner and order lasagna tonight. Then I think it works like this:
a. You decide to order the lasagna at dinner tonight.
b. Somehow this information travels back in time to the entity.
c. It becomes predetermined that you will order the lasagna.
d. You're now trapped by your own decision to order lasagna.
Essentially, you have to choose the lasagna because you decided to choose the lasagna. |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 8324
Location: Victoria, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Ana wrote: |
Alright, P, if there is a way for some entity to *know* what you will eat for breakfast tomorrow (for example), then scientifically, there is a way for the future information to get somehow to that entity, right? Otherwise this entity doesn't really *know* - it's just guessing (possibly with a very high probability of being correct). Suppose you go out for dinner and order lasagna tonight. Then I think it works like this:
a. You decide to order the lasagna at dinner tonight.
b. Somehow this information travels back in time to the entity.
c. It becomes predetermined that you will order the lasagna.
d. You're now trapped by your own decision to order lasagna.
Essentially, you have to choose the lasagna because you decided to choose the lasagna. |
Yeah, but you're running time in reverse. You're saying that first you decide to order lasagne, and then the information travels back in time, and then it becomes predetermined. I think it makes more sense to look at time as flowing forward:
1. God knows that you're going to order lasagna.
2. Later on, you order lasagna.
I agree that if you run time backwards and look at things that way, then you sort of avoid the problem. But that's the whole reason why we don't believe in prediction and predestination: if someone predicts something before it has happened, well, it hasn't happened yet, so it might happen differently than predicted. Running things backwards is kinda cheating.
In any case, I think I have come up with a slam-dunk version of the argument why and omniscient God is incompatible with human free will:
Suppose God is omniscient. That means He knows that I will have x for breakfast tomorrow. He comes down from heaven and tells me, "P123..., you are going to eat x for breakfast tomorrow, and that's the only thing you're going to eat. (Clearly God has the power to communicate this information to me, or else He isn't omnipotent.) Tomorrow morning rolls around, and I remember to myself, "God said that I'm about to eat x for breakfast." Now we're going to perform an experiment: I am going to try NOT to eat x for breakfast, and instead eat y. One of two things is going to happen:
1. I succeed, and instead of eating x, I eat y.
2. I fail, and through some compulsion find that I eat x even though I tried very hard to eat y instead.
In case 1, I have free will, and God is omnipotent.
In case 2, God is omnipotent, but I don't have free will.
These are the only two possibilities, and in either case human free will and Godly omnipotence don't both exist.
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous. |
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Ana
King of the Jungle
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1566
Location: BC
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| Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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| P1234567890 wrote: |
Yeah, but you're running time in reverse. You're saying that first you decide to order lasagne, and then the information travels back in time, and then it becomes predetermined. I think it makes more sense to look at time as flowing forward:
1. God knows that you're going to order lasagna.
2. Later on, you order lasagna.
I agree that if you run time backwards and look at things that way, then you sort of avoid the problem. But that's the whole reason why we don't believe in prediction and predestination: if someone predicts something before it has happened, well, it hasn't happened yet, so it might happen differently than predicted. Running things backwards is kinda cheating. |
I'm not running time backwards. I'm running it forwards, but I guess with a loop in it, or maybe the information doesn't necessarily run in the same direction as time. Consider the entity that *knows* an event that will happen in the future. The entity in question (be it a god, a person, an owl, etc...) must have obtained that information, either directly or indirectly, from that event.
| P1234567890 wrote: |
In any case, I think I have come up with a slam-dunk version of the argument why and omniscient God is incompatible with human free will:
Suppose God is omniscient. That means He knows that I will have x for breakfast tomorrow. He comes down from heaven and tells me, "P123..., you are going to eat x for breakfast tomorrow, and that's the only thing you're going to eat. (Clearly God has the power to communicate this information to me, or else He isn't omnipotent.) Tomorrow morning rolls around, and I remember to myself, "God said that I'm about to eat x for breakfast." Now we're going to perform an experiment: I am going to try NOT to eat x for breakfast, and instead eat y. One of two things is going to happen:
1. I succeed, and instead of eating x, I eat y.
2. I fail, and through some compulsion find that I eat x even though I tried very hard to eat y instead.
In case 1, I have free will, and God is omnipotent.
In case 2, God is omnipotent, but I don't have free will.
These are the only two possibilities, and in either case human free will and Godly omnipotence don't both exist. |
or in case 1, God lied to you, knowing full well you'd eat y, messing with your mind, and convincing you that you chose to eat y, when really he just didn't want you to eat x, and knew you'd be defiant 
Besides, you started by arguing about omniscience and ended arguing about omnipotence, and to be frank, the rock-so-big-even-he-cannot-lift-it argument is much more tidy. Demonstrating the impossibility of omnipotence does not do the same for omniscience.
I remain skeptical of the possibility of omniscience too, but I don't think we have control over our decisions either. Consciously, we do, but what rules consciousness? |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 8324
Location: Victoria, Canada
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| Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Ana wrote: |
I remain skeptical of the possibility of omniscience too, but I don't think we have control over our decisions either. Consciously, we do, but what rules consciousness? |
That is the trillion dollar question that nobody can answer. Science has no answers, and neither does religion.
Believers like to think that they know the answer; they say that your consciousness is ruled by your soul. But really this answer is no more satisfactory than when scientists say that our consciousness is ruled by the interactions of the neurons in our brains. In fact, it is probably less satisfactory, since we can prove that neurons exist, and we don't have any evidence that souls do.
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous. |
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Ana
King of the Jungle
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1566
Location: BC
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| Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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| P1234567890 wrote: | | Ana wrote: |
I remain skeptical of the possibility of omniscience too, but I don't think we have control over our decisions either. Consciously, we do, but what rules consciousness? |
That is the trillion dollar question that nobody can answer. Science has no answers, and neither does religion.
Believers like to think that they know the answer; they say that your consciousness is ruled by your soul. But really this answer is no more satisfactory than when scientists say that our consciousness is ruled by the interactions of the neurons in our brains. In fact, it is probably less satisfactory, since we can prove that neurons exist, and we don't have any evidence that souls do. |
Hmm, inasmuch as it isn't a pleasant idea, I think our consciousness is ruled by the chemicals in our brains and the neural pathways programmed into us by our lives. Any thoughts you're having, you're having because something triggered you to (internally or externally), and your brain's current state (chemicals / neural pathways) makes you think the thought you're thinking. It isn't that comfortable an idea, is it? I think about this quite often, though, because the implications are far-reaching. |
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