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Actually free will is one of those delicious unanswerable questions that everyone has a different answer for. Think about this for a moment -- what would be dif

Actually free will is one of those delicious unanswerable questions that everyone has a different answer for. Think about this for a moment -- what would be different about the world or human behavior if we had free will versus if we didn't? Talking about free will is just another way to have a conversation about God.

lisper 8y ago
Funny you should bring up God. Just yesterday I published a formal proof that God is logically incompatible with free will: http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/09/the-last-word-i-hope-on-fitchs-paradox.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/09/the-last-word-i-hope-on-f... You might find this interesting as well: https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-will.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-wil...
- twodave 8y ago
  Can't believe I'm being drawn into this, but in my view knowing an outcome doesn't mean controlling it. It simply means knowing it. In the case of your proposed definition of God's omniscience, it helps to picture God existing outside of our timeline. If God can see the entirety of history and the future as if it were a long thread, then it's more like he's watching a video of something that already happened. To Him, in many ways, it already has. So just because you're watching a replay of a football game doesn't mean the outcome was already decided from the beginning. It just means you know the story already because you're operating from a more privileged position in the timeline from which knowing the outcome becomes natural to you. The fallacy here is in assuming the time perspective of God to be equivalent to our own.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > Can't believe I'm being drawn into this, I know, right? > but in my view knowing an outcome doesn't mean controlling it. It simply means knowing it. Turns out knowing is enough to negate free will. Take a look at the proof.
    - twodave 8y ago
      Not when time is considered, in my view. Reference back to the football example. You can watch a replay of a football game where the outcome is already decided because you're literally in the future. But it wasn't decided before the game was played. So from God's perspective, yes the game has already been played and the ending is known. I hope I'm not insulting you, none is intended, but it seems to me that most theories that attempt to remove God and/or free will from reality are a thin veneer over a desire to be without responsibility. The only thing I have to add that I think we both agree on is that truth is indeed concrete, and what we choose (or sadly, think we are coerced) to believe has no bearing on it.
- nickwalton00 8y ago
  Another similar thought experiment. Assume people have free will. What if you could go in the future, read a book and learn everything that someone did in their life. Would that contradict free will?
  - lisper 8y ago
    You can actually do that experiment. What you can't do is, after having gone into the future and read the book, is go back in time with that knowledge intact. And there's a very good reason why you can't: http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-arrow-of-time.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-ar...

lisper 8y ago

Funny you should bring up God. Just yesterday I published a formal proof that God is logically incompatible with free will: http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/09/the-last-word-i-hope-on-fitchs-paradox.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/09/the-last-word-i-hope-on-f... You might find this interesting as well: https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-will.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-wil...

twodave 8y ago
Can't believe I'm being drawn into this, but in my view knowing an outcome doesn't mean controlling it. It simply means knowing it. In the case of your proposed definition of God's omniscience, it helps to picture God existing outside of our timeline. If God can see the entirety of history and the future as if it were a long thread, then it's more like he's watching a video of something that already happened. To Him, in many ways, it already has. So just because you're watching a replay of a football game doesn't mean the outcome was already decided from the beginning. It just means you know the story already because you're operating from a more privileged position in the timeline from which knowing the outcome becomes natural to you. The fallacy here is in assuming the time perspective of God to be equivalent to our own.
- lisper 8y ago
  > Can't believe I'm being drawn into this, I know, right? > but in my view knowing an outcome doesn't mean controlling it. It simply means knowing it. Turns out knowing is enough to negate free will. Take a look at the proof.
  - twodave 8y ago
    Not when time is considered, in my view. Reference back to the football example. You can watch a replay of a football game where the outcome is already decided because you're literally in the future. But it wasn't decided before the game was played. So from God's perspective, yes the game has already been played and the ending is known. I hope I'm not insulting you, none is intended, but it seems to me that most theories that attempt to remove God and/or free will from reality are a thin veneer over a desire to be without responsibility. The only thing I have to add that I think we both agree on is that truth is indeed concrete, and what we choose (or sadly, think we are coerced) to believe has no bearing on it.
nickwalton00 8y ago
Another similar thought experiment. Assume people have free will. What if you could go in the future, read a book and learn everything that someone did in their life. Would that contradict free will?
- lisper 8y ago
  You can actually do that experiment. What you can't do is, after having gone into the future and read the book, is go back in time with that knowledge intact. And there's a very good reason why you can't: http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-arrow-of-time.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-ar...