rainbow walking

I've often wondered if an omniscient being's mind worked in any way similar to our own? For instance, there are lot's of things we contain in our memory that we can safely say we know, but they don't come into our conscious awareness until we find a need to recall them.

If this were the case it might work out that such a being would only know eveything about your future when he brought his conscious mind to bear on you specifically. And while he wasn't thinking about you, you'd be free to make a different choice? So if you made a choice that was different from the last time he focused on you, the next time he focused on you, he'd know it.

In our realm of experience, it's often the case that some things we think we know can change and when we learn of the changes we have to re-evaluate what we knew.

Seems to me that knowing everything, in the conventional sense, would be pretty boring.

Another good question is would such a being have a memory? If so, does he ever forget anything? I know the standard christian apologetic holds that once a person confesses their sins that god casts them into the sea of forgetfulness, (their sins I mean, not the person )So it does seem that there are things he intentionally forgets, (provided you buy into this).

Then there's the logical qualifier I've heard that God only knows that which exists, so that any future event, since it doesn't yet exist, would not be known, but this seems to negate prophecy. Unless god could predict future events, based on current events, far more accurately than any man.

It's an interesting brain teaser, to be sure.

ChrisW

maybe one could think of it as like a chess player might (a chess player who never loses ). think of a person, who when his opponent only makes one move, can see every possible move in the future. he then can see a final outcome, him winning. no matter what choices are made it can only shorten or lengthen the final move. notice when god make a prophecy no specific time is given, get my drift?

Xyzzy

Don't get me wrong. I agree with your basic premise.. but your test is invalid. It is supposed to prove either non-omnicience, or no-free will. It does niether.

Wrong: The diety says... "Bless you my child. I knew you would do that if I told you you would do otherwise. Ahh.. my son.. it is all even as I foresaw that it would be."

The only thing you've really proven is that an omnicient being may not always tell the truth... either about what you will do next, or whether it really is omnicient.

How could you know. If the omnicient being said you "will shuffle the cards", and you decided to go along with it and shuffle the cards. How can you ever know that you might not have decided to do otherwise?

All you've proven is that you've shuffled the cards.

Again.. this proves nothing.

Sorry.

Xyzzy

Well, this begs the question as to what "free will" actually is. Does knowing what something will do given a situation preclude free will.. really? Is free will dependent absolutely on simply not knowing before hand how you will respond to a situation?

The truth is that our concept of free will consists of the following components:

1. The feeling of freedom from constraint. This is probably the primary aspect of our notion of free will.
2. The ability to make choices which no other entity has determined before hand.
3. Or less strongly.. to be able to make choices which are not purely deterministic.
4. Most importantly, it is the human mind processing information and making decisions based on that information as to what to do, unencumbered by immediate constraints on those decisions.

#1 Is merely a subjective feeling based on our dislike of constraint.

#2 Is impossible to prove, and therefore meaningless. The universe is too complicated to be predicted and known to the extent that it can be determined.. and there is no evidence for God.

#3 Is also impossible to determine, or even to prove that any process given quantum randomness is purely deterministic. Even if physical processes are deterministic, it doesn't necessarily mean that what we experience as free will would be any different that what it is. In other words, the illusion of free will in a deterministic universe.. actually IS free will.. merely because no meaningful distinction between the two concepts can be made (try it and see).

So.. #4 is actually the real basic definition of free will. Human brains processing information unconstrained by any known outside forces. This is largely a deterministic process, but it just doesn't "feel" like it to us, and that's what counts. Our subjective experience of freedom in a deterministic universe is not the "illusion" of free will.. it's what free will really is. Our other notions about free will are just wrong.

Given that I think this is what free will is, all this nonsense about God having to "look away" to give us free will makes no sense. Even if God knew exactly what we were going to do whenever we did it, we would still have what we define as free will because our minds are unencumbered by percieved constraints. We process the information from our environment, and make decisions.

Even if you are a computer AI going through the 30th iteration of a deterministic simulation in which each time, you think the exact same thoughts at the same time.. the AI inside the simulation is experiencing the exact same "free will" that we all do.

Yeah.. kind of pointless to make a universe when you know how everything is going to play out. Might as well just watch it on virtual God "DVD".

But hey.. I didn't make him up.

Xyzzy

Then God is no longer omnicient, because he has mindwiped himself concerning some aspects of the future. You've just changed God into an ordinary mortal.

But your in good company. Christian apologetics frequently does precisely the same thing implicitly when it addresses this problem.

ChrisW

well i would hardly say i turned god into a mortal, but i, just as everyone here is doing, am assuming to know the mind of god, which is absurd in and of itself.

as to the "virtual God 'DVD'", how do you know this isn't it ?

rainbow walking

rw: And you are right, of course, it wouldn't make any difference either way to us because we're going act and feel like our choices are completely our own. Even if a god exists and knows our entire history from the cradle to the grave.

The thing is, this kind of omniscience creates a real conundrum for the christian who believes men come to god freely by their own choice. An omniscience that knows all future events before they obtain already knows who his heavenly chior will be and who he's going to be roasting over the campfire. This sort of makes the entire evangelism aspect of christianity pointless...or even devious.

The only omniscience I can see making any consistent sense to xianity is the logically restricted kind where he knows every possible choice you could make but not the actual choice until made. Thus omniscience is limited to actual events and not future events that haven't become a reality. He would still be able to make accurate predictions by considering the probable outcome of the choices you'd already made. Kinda like warning a teenager who's dabbling in drugs that if he continues down that path he's not going to like the consequenses.

Just_An_Atheist

"The only omniscience I can see making any consistent sense to xianity is the logically restricted kind where he knows every possible choice you could make but not the actual choice until made. Thus omniscience is limited to actual events and not future events that haven't become a reality"

I don't think that this defence is open to evangelical Christianity, because they hold that God predicted the future in numerous prophecies in the old, and new testaments. It would seem that if that god existed, that He would have foreknowledge of all of our future actions.

rainbow walking

I'm not an authority on OT prophecies but a prophecy is somewhat different from a scientific prediction. Most of the OT prophecies are issued as warnings, such that they appear to be conditional rather than written in stone declarations that X will happen. This would seem to support the interpretation of omniscience as being logically restricted to actuality rather than as-yet unrealized events.

It's like my observing a group of kids playing with a campfire and issuing a warning that if they persist, someone is likely to get burned. This type of prediction doesn't necessitate an omniscience that already knows that someone will get burned, who and how badly. If I had stated that Bob was going to get burned in ten minutes and need medical attention and this set of events actually happened then we'd be talking omniscience in a past, present and future tense. But to merely observe current events and have the knowledge of where those events are likely to lead and say so, is a somewhat watered down version of omniscience. It's a general sort of knowledge that doesn't necessitate specifics before they occur.

Nowhere357

Good clear post.

The first paragraph above begs the question. The actual decision cannot be known with 100% accuracy until the decision is made - so if god knows ahead of time with 100% accuracy how we'll choose, then the decision has somehow already been made, before we made it! That makes no sense to me.

In the second parargraph, the day an AI over-rides the next iteration of a deterministic simulation, is the day we can say the AI has free will. Until then, there is no reason to think the AI is experiencing anything.

People, however, DO experience. And given the same thoughts, we can reach a different decision.