Omnipotence Doesn't Imply Seeing The Future.

[soon2bepro]

I'll add a small point: If there is no evil, what's the problem with causing pain on others? It's all part of God's plan anyway, right? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[guesswest]

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guesswest: Again, creating the universe doens't necessarily mean you know all the variables. Simply that you put all things together.
About omniscience denying free will:
What really IS free will? Does anyone know? There seems to be a really huge taboo all around it. Very few seem to know what it actually means, yet everyone and their mother is talking about it.

Really, explain it to us. What is free will for you? Imagine a perfect world, with free will, and explain just what it is and what it takes for it to be there.

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I didn't say creating the universe implied knowledge of all the variables, I said omniscience implied knowledge of all the variables! Which it does, by definition. Thus god necessarily knows the future, unless he himself is involved in future events.

And I didn't say omniscience denies free will either, I'm not sure where you got that from. What I said is that god's actions can not be mandated by anyone other than himself, which is a necessary condition of omnipotence. In other words, if god's actions were entirely an inevitable and thus predictable reaction to conditions within his creation, then he would no longer be omnipotent and no longer be god.

And a taboo about free will? Really? What do you even mean by that?????

This wasn't really a discussion about free will in the first place, but since you brought it up. Free will in philosophy is just discussion as to whether actions are ultimately determined by previous events, ie if we act entirely by reaction, or if there is something within each human which exists to seperate us from that causal chain.

[soon2bepro]

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I didn't say creating the universe implied knowledge of all the variables, I said omniscience implied knowledge of all the variables! Which it does, by definition.

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Must've gotten you wrong here.

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Thus god necessarily knows the future, unless he himself is involved in future events.

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I disagree. I don't see why omnipotence doesn't mean knowing His actions aswell. Especially when considering that He already knows what the future will be, so there really doesn't seem to be any point in changing His mind later.


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And I didn't say omniscience denies free will either, I'm not sure where you got that from. What I said is that god's actions can not be mandated by anyone other than himself, which is a necessary condition of omnipotence. In other words, if god's actions were entirely an inevitable and thus predictable reaction to conditions within his creation, then he would no longer be omnipotent and no longer be god.

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I don't see how His knowing His own future actions denies Him of the power to choose what they'll be (or rather having chosen them in anticipation)


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And a taboo about free will? Really? What do you even mean by that?????

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Well, people are really touchy about the subject, and very often not objective. I think it's because they need free will to be what they think it is (or rather, they think it is that way because they need so).

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Free will in philosophy is just discussion as to whether actions are ultimately determined by previous events, ie if we act entirely by reaction, or if there is something within each human which exists to seperate us from that causal chain.

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Something like what? Another system that isn't causality? Could it be randomness?

[guesswest]

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I disagree. I don't see why omnipotence doesn't mean knowing His actions aswell. Especially when considering that He already knows what the future will be, so there really doesn't seem to be any point in changing His mind later.

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Right, seems like there wouldn't be a need, and probably isn't. But in order to maintain omnipotence he has to be able to exercise it should he choose to do so. And who knows what reason that would be? It doesn't matter, whim, boredom. Whether he does or not doesn't matter, it's enough that he can in terms of logic. I don't mug old people for a whole host of reasons, and probably never will. Saying I won't is an entirely different thing to saying I can't.

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I don't see how His knowing His own future actions denies Him of the power to choose what they'll be (or rather having chosen them in anticipation)

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It's self contained, he can't choose what they are because they're pre-determined. If you go this route god essentially becomes a useless concept, ie it's just a term for the sum of all things rather than referring to anything with autonomy.


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Something like what? Another system that isn't causality? Could it be randomness?

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A question I can't answer because I'm a determinist. Also, this is an extraordinarily developed and written about subject so I'm not going to attempt to write a synopsis here. But generally people who believe in free will refer to the existence of the 'soul', or argue that the variables are so complex that the determined human essentially has free will (the latter point I don't disagree with).

[soon2bepro]

Lol yeah, the soul. I figured some people would come up with that explanation. It's really funny when you think about it. It's like, no matter what you throw at them in the subject, they'll just hide themselves in the "soul" card. Soul is another thing that people don't really know what it is, by the way.
Their argument basically is: I don't know how we could possibly have free will, so I'll say we do have free will since ultimately it all comes down to our souls. (which doesn't really solve the problem, since ultimately it doesn't make any difference whether it's the soul or the mind that makes desitions)

We really can't figure out what this "autonomy" means or implies. We have no idea as to how it would be possible. I mean, we can't even imagine a way for there to be anything such as "free will" for anyone. Not even God!

I don't see why God can be an entity without true "free will" and still serve it's purpose. You can still pray to him to try to change His mind (or whatever other purpose); you can still count on Him to have planned things in a certain way that works out for the greater good.

In fact, if God's choices were not bound by the limits of reality... What would be the point in making them? They'd be senseless. The very idea of making desitions means He'll have reality and ONLY reality in mind when making them.

Sure, if He wanted to, He can make another desition, but why would He want to in the first place?
This is the very concept that explains why free will for humans is just a feeling. Sure, if you want to have coke instead of pepsi, even for a whim, or just to prove you can, you can do that. But given that particular situation (which is next to impossible to reproduce) and the particular you (which is orders of magnitude harder to reproduce since you're changing every time with every little bit of information that is added to your system), there's only one choice you're going to make.

In other words, just because there's only one desition that He can make in a particular situation, doesn't mean He is not omnipotent. He can do whatever He decides to do still.

On a side note, a good way to experiment with human reaction/desition issues, at least to start with, would be to use people who suffer from absolute anterograde amnesia.


(edit to add):
The existance of randomness isn't going to help give more autonomy to the free will issue. I hope you see why.

(edit again - forgot this part):
About the variables being so complex that we would automatically have free will... Well, that's just nonsense [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I mean, does the concept of free will have as a prerequisite that we don't understand all the variables involved in the complex cause-effect//+random process?

If so, I'll agree, but most people don't mean that when they talk about true "free will".

[guesswest]

OK I think you're misconstruing a few things here, both with what I said and with the issues involved with these topics generally.

If you envision god as omnipotent and the creator of all things, the starting point of determinism would then be the will of god. God's will, whether you're a determinist or not, cannot be determined by definition, because he is the starting point. There is nothing before god if god is the creator, so nothing can determine his will. Any chain of reactions needs a preceding reaction, and in the theist model that primary action is god.

I'm not sure what you're saying about randomness giving autonomy - that's not what I said. I can choose to swerve into oncoming traffic, I won't do, but I can - here the 'can' has a very different meaning to the 'won't. It is necessary that god 'can' be active in future events, even if he won't be, and you're right that he presumably will have no need to be since being omniscient he isn't going to get things wrong. But the 'can' remains important, because if that's not present then he is not omnipotent. In fact, he'd be entirely impotent, since there's nothing he could do.

As far as the soul goes, I agree it's a fuzzy definition, hence my being a determinist. But I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss it, there are whole schools of philosophy that revolve around these issues, with a lot of intelligent people making persuasive arguments.

And RE your last edit. What people mean when they say that is this: if you had will that was in no way reactionary, then you wouldn't be able to interact with anything. For instance I could not freely choose to type this message because doing so is contingent on external variables (eg me having a computer, keyboard etc). Therefore (they argue), if the idea of free will is to have any meaning, it must be reactionary, but have a sufficient number of self contained variables that it is internally more potent than externality. In that sense consciousness can be divided into an internal collective interacting with the externality, and when that internal collective is potent, as it is in humans, free will emerges. Some people call that internality a soul.

[soon2bepro]

Fine, say God's will is not "determined"... What is it? What process does it use? Reason maybe? You'd be just suggesting something that is nothing.
Maybe there is no process? Do God's desitions make no sense at all then? In time you come to the point where you can understand that the only thing that would make sense, is that God's desitions also work by causality.

Sure you can choose to swerve into uncoming traffic. But that's not the point. The point is that your desition is based on causality (and maybe randomness).

You, as of right now (this very instant) are a particular person. An extremely complex sum of various kinds of information, which interact with each of the other parts (or some of them) in an immensely complex mathematical calculation that is way too complex for us to understand entirely. That is what you are as of right now. However, any other information that reaches you is going to change you in many ways. It's going to interact with a lot of the stored information that you are, resulting in innumerable events ultimately producing a immensely huge chain reaction. So it's fair to say that one second to the next, you're quite a different person; even if in essence you seem to be the same.

In a particular situation you may have quite a few options; but the situation itself is already altering you. Every single piece of information that reaches you (and that doesn't mean just information that reaches your brain, but all kinds of information) influences you. Of course, we know enough about the universe to know that we really don't know [censored]. So we know that a particular situation can't be thought to be "in a dark room with a bottle of coke and another of beer", there are infinite little things that we don't know about that interact with human desitions (as with anything else in the universe). So it is fair to say that 2 situations that seem identical to us can be quite different from each other. Or at least slightly different, which means the chain reaction they'll produce can result in a huge difference in any given conclusion that we're seeking.

But the idea of humans being determined by causality is that given a human -A- and a situation -B-, the human will always respond in the same way -C-. Not just in his/her desitions, but in everything that he/she is. You may blink at a certain point, at a certain rate; your adrenalive levels may vary in a particular way, whatever.

You can think: "Oh, but if I wanted to I could choose something other than C"... Well, your first mistake is that you assume that by hearing this information, you wouldn't be altering yourself (or the situation); but you are. In other words, if you wanted to do other than C (say D), then it would be because A and/or B are no longer A and B (or never were). Maybe they are now A and G, or J and B, or N and M.


Now, you may think of throwing in randomness to the mix, which is the only other system that we can think of so far (it's really just a derivation from causality) but that isn't going to help; because what you'll have then is that human A in a situation B can respond in ways: C, D, E, etc; based in nothing other than what we call "pure chance".


Yes there are schools and there are philosophers. So what? Do you know how many christians dedicated to analyze their belief are there in the world? Many. Does that mean they must be right?
It's not rational to dismiss a seemingly correct argument simply because many people think otherwise; even if it's experts. Unless of course you just don't wanna get involved, and just choose to take the expert's opinion instead; But I don't think that's the case here.

Anyway, I'm not saying "the soul" is a ridiculous idea, just that most people who believe in it don't even seem to know what it is (or their definition is self contradictory). In the best cases, the soul is just thought of as another way to refer to consciousness, or maybe other parts of the human mind.

On to your last point: If I'm getting this right; is this ideology's point that free will means you as an entity have more influence in your desitions than the outside influence? (even if it is deterministic)

[Philo]

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Again you insist on the apriori judgement that pain is "evil."

Ask a leper about pain. He will goto extreme lenghts to be able to experience pain again. As would someone who was paralyised.

We can both assign the value of "evil" to a process or event, but we have no way of knowing if it is truely,objectively or absolutely "evil". Only God can know that.

If there is free will there is pain. If there is pleasure there is pain. Also pain serves numerous positive functions in human development. How can man be Noble if he never has to overcome adversity. How can man have compassion if there is no suffering.

It is not difficult to assign pain as a core process in a universe that is ultimately as good as God can make it.

Your whole arguement is compossed of pain etc = evil, end of discussion. You are however in no position or composed of the attributes as an existent subject in time to make such defintive conclusions.

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There's nothing a priori about the claim that there is pain in the world. By definition pain hurts, so I suppose that much can be considered a priori, but that is not even relevant.

As for the rest of what you say, a lot of it is irrelevant, and wrong. There doesn't have to be pain just b/c there is free will, and there doesn't have to be pain just b/c there is pleasure.

If pain is not an evil, then 'overcoming' it is not an adversity, since we're not really overcoming anything.

You have yet to address the point that the mere appearance of there being pain is itself painful to us (whether or not the pain that is apparent is only merely apparent or in fact real), but I'm not even sure you get that point b/c it's a bit subtle, so nevermind.

[Cyrus]

Who told you that God-in-Himself is "part of our world" ? There is only His relation to our world! Just like your relation to a giant rock statue which you constructed.

Lift the matress and check the label under Arrow Of Time : it says Made By God.

[guesswest]

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Fine, say God's will is not "determined"... What is it? What process does it use? Reason maybe? You'd be just suggesting something that is nothing.
Maybe there is no process? Do God's desitions make no sense at all then? In time you come to the point where you can understand that the only thing that would make sense, is that God's desitions also work by causality.

Sure you can choose to swerve into uncoming traffic. But that's not the point. The point is that your desition is based on causality (and maybe randomness).

You, as of right now (this very instant) are a particular person. An extremely complex sum of various kinds of information, which interact with each of the other parts (or some of them) in an immensely complex mathematical calculation that is way too complex for us to understand entirely. That is what you are as of right now. However, any other information that reaches you is going to change you in many ways. It's going to interact with a lot of the stored information that you are, resulting in innumerable events ultimately producing a immensely huge chain reaction. So it's fair to say that one second to the next, you're quite a different person; even if in essence you seem to be the same.

In a particular situation you may have quite a few options; but the situation itself is already altering you. Every single piece of information that reaches you (and that doesn't mean just information that reaches your brain, but all kinds of information) influences you. Of course, we know enough about the universe to know that we really don't know [censored]. So we know that a particular situation can't be thought to be "in a dark room with a bottle of coke and another of beer", there are infinite little things that we don't know about that interact with human desitions (as with anything else in the universe). So it is fair to say that 2 situations that seem identical to us can be quite different from each other. Or at least slightly different, which means the chain reaction they'll produce can result in a huge difference in any given conclusion that we're seeking.

But the idea of humans being determined by causality is that given a human -A- and a situation -B-, the human will always respond in the same way -C-. Not just in his/her desitions, but in everything that he/she is. You may blink at a certain point, at a certain rate; your adrenalive levels may vary in a particular way, whatever.

You can think: "Oh, but if I wanted to I could choose something other than C"... Well, your first mistake is that you assume that by hearing this information, you wouldn't be altering yourself (or the situation); but you are. In other words, if you wanted to do other than C (say D), then it would be because A and/or B are no longer A and B (or never were). Maybe they are now A and G, or J and B, or N and M.


Now, you may think of throwing in randomness to the mix, which is the only other system that we can think of so far (it's really just a derivation from causality) but that isn't going to help; because what you'll have then is that human A in a situation B can respond in ways: C, D, E, etc; based in nothing other than what we call "pure chance".


Yes there are schools and there are philosophers. So what? Do you know how many christians dedicated to analyze their belief are there in the world? Many. Does that mean they must be right?
It's not rational to dismiss a seemingly correct argument simply because many people think otherwise; even if it's experts. Unless of course you just don't wanna get involved, and just choose to take the expert's opinion instead; But I don't think that's the case here.

Anyway, I'm not saying "the soul" is a ridiculous idea, just that most people who believe in it don't even seem to know what it is (or their definition is self contradictory). In the best cases, the soul is just thought of as another way to refer to consciousness, or maybe other parts of the human mind.

On to your last point: If I'm getting this right; is this ideology's point that free will means you as an entity have more influence in your desitions than the outside influence? (even if it is deterministic)

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God's decisions can not be a result of causality. That is true, again, by definition. I should say btw that I'm an agnostic, due to all the paradoxes involved in this stuff. But to say god's will is determined by causality is like saying up is down, it's a fundamental contradiction. If you're referring to some being having his actions determined, he is necessarily not god.

Again, I'm a determinist, so I don't disagree with much of that. My point is only that there is a lot, lot, lot more to this debate than is articulated there. And that it is intellectually useful and honest, especially where many intelligent and thoughtful people are putting forth an argument, to at all times entertain the possibility that you're wrong and listen with open ears.

On the last thing - I can't for the life of me remember the name of this particular school of thought, I haven't done this stuff since I was an undergrad. But the viewpoint is basically this:

The question is asked, 'what is this me that is being determined'? You can obviously reduce this infinitely, your body, your brain, a neuron etc. Certainly within this bulk of things which is collectively identified as self there are internal reactions. One synapse firing and producing a reaction within the brain isn't thought of as determinism, it's just thought of as internal functioning. So the argument is that 'free will' emerges when the sum of reactions within this internality, within the physical and metaphysical area we designate as self, has more bearing on our action than causes external to that self do. I have some kind of problem with this model just in that I don't know how you'd possibly quantify the weight of those variables, internal or external, but I think it holds some weight and makes some sense. It also addresses this issue that we empirically idenfity with ourselves as possessing free will.