Nowhere357

Wouldn't work. We can't travel BACK in time. Despite Star Trek, etc, the concept has no meaning.

Chant, it's pointless to compare omnigod with logic. Believe in an omnigod, and you reject logic. Utilize logic, and you disprove omnigod.

Inconnu

If god where omniscient, he would not have created the universe and everything as there would be no point. btw, choice of road X and road Y is usually based upon a map, some logical deduction or some already held knowledge, even a flip of a coin or eeny meany, not a pure guess

chant

okay. i agree time travel is problematic. i was just using it as a thought experiment. here's another one:

i am a mind reader. when you are choosing whether to take road X or road Y, i read your mind and know that you will choose road X. in doing so, i have not altered your decision in any way. i have not taken your free will away from you. i am simply aware of what you are going to do.

i am not saying i believe in an omnigod. i am merely saying that i see no causal connection between omniscience and determinism.

"If god were omniscient, he would not have created the universe and everything as there would be no point."

i'm not quite sure i follow this argument either. why would there be no point?

Inconnu

What has this omniscient being got to gain from such a creation, what would be the reason for the exercise? If God is omniscient, he can gain nothing from it, and so wouldnt bother. Sounds a bit lame now you made me explain it but thats what I basically meant. If he exists then he aint omniscient.

Philosoft

The thing all these thought experiments have in common is that they presuppose a pre-existing timeline. Time traveling and mind reading are two sides of the same coin. Any ability to "access" T1 from any point prior presupposes a definite T1. As soon as you establish the truth of a statemtent like, "P will do X at T1," you've removed any probability that P will not do X at T1.
Well, it isn't strictly a deductive certainty that an omnigod is the cause of 'P does X at T1.' The omnigod's knowledge of the truth of that statement at T, however, does require that 'P does X at T1' be true at T. Thus, whether or not the omnigod is the cause of 'P does X at T1,' it is a determined state of affairs nonetheless.

Clutch

If god is atemporal, it's unclear that there's any problem here. His knowing every event is consistent with free will, or even with local indeterminacy; it's just that he sees the entire 4-d structure of spacetime and all the events it contains.

So if at t Ted freely performs F, then the god knows -- in a totally tenseless sense -- that at t Ted freely performs F. Similarly for truly indeterministic events. But god's knowing this does not change what the event is: ex hypothesi, Ted's freely performing F.

Of course, this just relocates the problem to what it could conceivably mean for an agent -- something that acts -- to be outside of time. But since many Christians seem ready to swallow that one anyhow (irrespective of its atrocious fit with the OT), they can at least use it to avoid the predetermination problem.

Or so it seems to me.

chant

"What has this omniscient being got to gain from such a creation, what would be the reason for the exercise? If God is omniscient, he can gain nothing from it, and so wouldnt bother."

well, he might just like making things! who knows. i have to say, why God chose to create the universe is one of the questions religions never seem to consider worthy of their time. nevertheless, i think any number of reasons could be invented for why an omniscient being would create a universe like ours, so i wouldn't say your argument per se rules out the possibility of an omniscient god.

"The thing all these thought experiments have in common is that they presuppose a pre-existing timeline."

yes, i think i agree with this, although there is a shadow of doubt about it lurking in my mind that i am not intelligent enough to formulate.

"The omnigod's knowledge of the truth of that statement at T, however, does require that 'P does X at T1' be true at T. Thus, whether or not the omnigod is the cause of 'P does X at T1,' it is a determined state of affairs nonetheless."

yes, there is no necessary causal connection that i can see between knowing that P will do X at T1 and P doing X at T1, although (and this is the bit that sounds right but 'feels' wrong) if it can be known that P will do X at T1 then that would seem to suggest that the event is predetermined.

thanks, Philosoft! i skimmed down this argument in haste, but your comments have helped to focus me on what the real debate is.

Nowhere357

During this thread I've said:
It's pointless to compare omnigod with logic.
IMO it's just not a helpful way of looking at it.
The whole argument, for both views, is just useless.
...and the back and forth leads nowhere.

Am I semi-omniscient?

Even the best mind reader cannot access my decision, until I've made it. Once I've reached a decision, then yes, the mind reader can become aware of it, without violating my free will.

So time travel and mind reading both fail to reconcile omniscience with free will.

Nowhere357

The problem I see with this, is that a nearly infinite number of random events occur every moment. If the "4-d structure" includes only one possible future, then randomness - and free will - still don't exist. Otherwise, we arrive at the "many worlds" view (I think), that is, an infinite number of futures actually exist, and that makes no sense to me.

An infinite number of possible futures, yes, but not actual futures.

Einstein has led us astray with his conceptualization of time, as a dimension, IMO. True dimensions - 3d space - can be moved around in freely. Time simply cannot be moved around in freely.

Time as such does not exist. What DOES exist is changing matter. Without change, time has no meaning.

The concept of space/time has been very useful, definitely. Unfortunately, it makes time seem like a fundamental property, just like space, and I don't think it is. But I don't really have a better solution, so I'm going to keep this idea to myself...

braces_for_impact

I think it should also be viewed in the context of god as the creator of the person that will make the choice ,or has the illusion of the choice. When god creates someone (supposedly) he knows their path, it is predetermined. Free will is an illusion. One cannot deviate from the path god knows the person will take.

I don't think it has to be directly causal to have the effect of limiting your free will. For example, if god in all his omniscience knows that tomorrow morning you will wake at 8 a.m. is it possible for you to awake at 7 a.m.? Are you capable of sleeping in? Are you able to set your alarm and have it wake you up at 7 a.m.? Now say that you have a job interview at 8 in the morning. If you awake at 7, you will arrive on time. If you awake at 8 (god's predetermined time for you) you will be late to your interview and not get the job. If you don't get the job, you don't have any money and your car gets reposessed. With no car, you can't find a very good job, because all the good ones are far away and there's very little public transportation in your area. So, your quality of life now sucks. So in essence, a whole chain of events has just transpired that are completely out of your control because it simply cannot be another way.

The real ramifications of this are obvious of course, and I think this is why some christians fight it. It means that those that would be going to hell are predetermined to do so, and yet god created them anyway. This removes god's attribute of being entirely benevolent.