Does God "CHOOSE" not to know the future?

[McBell]

Finally! Someone has hit the weak spot in the argument and clearly expressed it . Kudos to you. And it's the reason I've never used the argument in disproving free will.

 

[Akivah]

Why does knowing what choice will be selected lead to a conclusion that the only choice that can be selected is the one that is previously known? It's because if the future choice has already been determined by God, than the choice is determined, one can't choose any of the other potential and "possible" undetermined choices.

No, the future choice is not determined by G-d, it is known by G-d. Knowledge of the future is completely different from controlling the future.

In the Charlie example, Charlie has free will to make his choice. That G-d knows what Charlie will choose in the future does not mean that G-d forced Charlie to make the choice.

 

[FearGod]

No, the future choice is not determined by G-d, it is known by G-d. Knowledge of the future is completely different from controlling the future.

In the Charlie example, Charlie has free will to make his choice. That G-d knows what Charlie will choose in the future does not mean that G-d forced Charlie to make the choice.

If God already knows about our future choices then that means we're all programmed and have no free wills.

 

[dust1n]

No, it doesn't

I'm not sure how one could make the case that God is coercing anyone without first establishing that he is all power. God being aware of all future things doesn't make him responsible for all future things. But, being aware of all future things does mean that all future things are fixed in such a way that the outcome is determined, not "determined by God," like he made up his mind and made it happen, but "determined by God," in such that God's knowledge is capable of making that determination because there is something there to be determined. Namely, if the future events were not fixed, God could not see them.

Correct, all he has to do is engage in coercion.

Disagreed. Without even making a claim to God's coercion of his will overriding my will, as it doesn't matter if god is all powerful or all not, his all-knowingness means the nature of existence is such that the word is fixed.

Really, who "determined" the outcomes?
How did they coerce the outcome?

It's not a matter that a who "determined" the outcome, in the sense that God's will overrides something to making something the case. It's a matter that the future outcomes are "determined" by things that aren't "my free will." If future outcomes were determined at all, even a bit by my "free will." God could not know the outcome of a circumstance until I've made a decision. If he knows what decision I will reason myself to, then the decision I eventually reason myself to is nonnegotiable. I can't reason differently to arrive at a different decision. There is only one way I will reason through a future decision, that being the means by which God has already confirmed to be the case.

Bold empty claim.

If I have free will, then 50 days from now, I will make a decision as to what to have for dinner. However, I won't make that decision for 50 days. If God already now knows what the meal is going to be, because my will even makes that determination, than God knows what the outcome will be without my consent. My will can't express itself in any other manner than by the manner that God knows it will, and has known it will since before I was born. How can I force my will to choose differently than the manner by which God knows I will choose? It's not that God does choose what my choice will be. It's that his knowing of what my choice will be is tantamount to saying that it's possible to know the outcome of my will without considering my "free will" at all.

You will have to show how merely knowing something will happen removes the free will of those involved.
You have not done so.

The action of knowing something does not remove free will. The fact that that something is knowable, if it truly is knowable, then it does conflict with free will.

 

[dust1n]

No, the future choice is not determined by G-d, it is known by G-d. Knowledge of the future is completely different from controlling the future.

I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that knowledge of the future negates free will, regardless if there is control of the future. When I say "determined by God," I do not mean to say that God makes a choice and then makes it so. When I "determined by God" I mean established as true.

In the Charlie example, Charlie has free will to make his choice. That G-d knows what Charlie will choose in the future does not mean that G-d forced Charlie to make the choice.

I know. That God knows what Charlie will choose in the future means that there is a future in which Charlie will only choose one thing, meaning that there is no possible future for any other choice. Meaning there is only one choice one can make.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sure, but my claim isn't that God is making future events true by stating them

That's true, and I didn't mean to suggest you were. I was making a comparison between two different forms of causally inefficacious mechanisms: god's foreknowledge and truth-value.

I'm stating that in order for God to know any future event to be true, the future must be determined for God to know it.

For something X to determine the future state of something Y, X must be causally efficacious: To determine is to cause. Knowledge is not a cause, any more than the truth of a proposition is.

Of course, this presents something of a paradox: How can knowledge of the future be perfect, and yet it be possible for a conscious entity (or autonomous entity) to self-determine/exercise free will?

One issue is the question: If an individual makes a choice, then it cannot by definition be determined (else it would not be choice). Ergo, it would seem that if god is omniscient, choice is not possible. This is not true.

Explain.

First, consider spacetime (or relativistic physics, whether special relativity or general or relativistic quantum physics). Simultaneity cannot exist. That is, your "now" exists only locally: given any particular experience of "now", there exist reference frames for which this "now" has not yet come to pass AND has already happened. The future isn't determined, because it is the past, and the past isn't determined, because this is nonsense. Rather, time (and therefore causality) is only LOCALLY linear, and thus there can exist reference frames wherein one can make a "choice" without it being determined despite the fact that it is "known" (in physics, it is "known" by the computational universe or by Lorentz transforms or more of the same). "God's" omniscience is easily compared to the frame of reference of spacetime itself: all reference frames are 3-dimensional perspectives of time unfolding that, to a 4th dimensional perspective, is static (and everything has both occurred and not occurred, as there is no occurring).

Then there is the more general issue of causality itself. Since Aspect et. al.'s 1982 confirmation of violations of Bell's inequalities, it has been apparent that two experimenters separated by (what has been experimentally confirmed to be) several kilometers can "freely choose" ("free choice" in experimental particle/quantum physics is a technical term not related to free will but causality and locality in physics) to prepare a system in a particular state and then measure it, yet the measurement of one experimenter performs will reveal what the outcome of measurement will be many kilometers away AFTER that experiment has begun yet BEFORE measurement. However, there can't be any classical causal mechanism, because that would require the measurement by one experimenter to instantaneously transmit information to the system prepared by the other experimenter. In other words, these experiments violate the superluminal constraint and therefore locality in that they demonstrate a causal "link" between two systems that exists in "no-time".

The knowledge of some omniscient God is less of a violation of causality and less of a determining factor than such empirical results.

 

[McBell]

I'm not sure how one could make the case that God is coercing anyone without first establishing that he is all power. God being aware of all future things doesn't make him responsible for all future things. But, being aware of all future things does mean that all future things are fixed in such a way that the outcome is determined, not "determined by God," like he made up his mind and made it happen, but "determined by God," in such that God's knowledge is capable of making that determination because there is something there to be determined. Namely, if the future events were not fixed, God could not see them.



Disagreed. Without even making a claim to God's coercion of his will overriding my will, as it doesn't matter if god is all powerful or all not, his all-knowingness means the nature of existence is such that the word is fixed.



It's not a matter that a who "determined" the outcome, in the sense that God's will overrides something to making something the case. It's a matter that the future outcomes are "determined" by things that aren't "my free will." If future outcomes were determined at all, even a bit by my "free will." God could not know the outcome of a circumstance until I've made a decision. If he knows what decision I will reason myself to, then the decision I eventually reason myself to is nonnegotiable. I can't reason differently to arrive at a different decision. There is only one way I will reason through a future decision, that being the means by which God has already confirmed to be the case.



If I have free will, then 50 days from now, I will make a decision as to what to have for dinner. However, I won't make that decision for 50 days. If God already now knows what the meal is going to be, because my will even makes that determination, than God knows what the outcome will be without my consent. My will can't express itself in any other manner than by the manner that God knows it will, and has known it will since before I was born. How can I force my will to choose differently than the manner by which God knows I will choose? It's not that God does choose what my choice will be. It's that his knowing of what my choice will be is tantamount to saying that it's possible to know the outcome of my will without considering my "free will" at all.



The action of knowing something does not remove free will. The fact that that something is knowable, if it truly is knowable, then it does conflict with free will.

Now you are merely chasing your own tail.

 

[Akivah]

I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that knowledge of the future negates free will, regardless if there is control of the future. When I say "determined by God," I do not mean to say that God makes a choice and then makes it so. When I "determined by God" I mean established as true.

I know. That God knows what Charlie will choose in the future means that there is a future in which Charlie will only choose one thing, meaning that there is no possible future for any other choice. Meaning there is only one choice one can make.

I'm interested in your POV. I've never considered the "fixed" concept. Suppose that I built a time machine and that I saw what you will do tomorrow. Did you lose your freewill the instant I observed your tomorrow's actions?

 

[dust1n]

That's true, and I didn't mean to suggest you were. I was making a comparison between two different forms of causally inefficacious mechanisms: god's foreknowledge and truth-value.

Oh, I gotcha. Wasn't sure if it was objecting or not. Otherwise, I don't disagree.

For something X to determine the future state of something Y, X must be causally efficacious: To determine is to cause. Knowledge is not a cause, any more than the truth of a proposition is.

I do need to clarify then my usage of "determined," as I did earlier state to determine was to be the cause of. I'm just lacking a better word here. If I'm looking at a math problem, say 500+23=x, and I determine x=523, I'm not making it so. It's a weird colloquially misunderstanding I'm having. Perhaps I should not say that God's knowledge determines the future, but that the future must be determined in order for God to have knowledge of it, and it's God's ascertaining of knowledge that contradicts free will.

Of course, this presents something of a paradox: How can knowledge of the future be perfect, and yet it be possible for a conscious entity (or autonomous entity) to self-determine/exercise free will?

One issue is the question: If an individual makes a choice, then it cannot by definition be determined (else it would not be choice). Ergo, it would seem that if god is omniscient, choice is not possible. This is not true.

What would you call a "choice" that is "determined?" Does a rather exercise any amount of will when going through a maze?

First, consider spacetime (or relativistic physics, whether special relativity or general or relativistic quantum physics). Simultaneity cannot exist. That is, your "now" exists only locally: given any particular experience of "now", there exist reference frames for which this "now" has not yet come to pass AND has already happened. The future isn't determined, because it is the past, and the past isn't determined, because this is nonsense. Rather, time (and therefore causality) is only LOCALLY linear, and thus there can exist reference frames wherein one can make a "choice" without it being determined despite the fact that it is "known" (in physics, it is "known" by the computational universe or by Lorentz transforms or more of the same). "God's" omniscience is easily compared to the frame of reference of spacetime itself: all reference frames are 3-dimensional perspectives of time unfolding that, to a 4th dimensional perspective, is static (and everything has both occurred and not occurred, as there is no occurring).

Are the two things related in the sense that pose similar problems to free will?

Then there is the more general issue of causality itself. Since Aspect et. al.'s 1982 confirmation of violations of Bell's inequalities, it has been apparent that two experimenters separated by (what has been experimentally confirmed to be) several kilometers can "freely choose" ("free choice" in experimental particle/quantum physics is a technical term not related to free will but causality and locality in physics) to prepare a system in a particular state and then measure it, yet the measurement of one experimenter performs will reveal what the outcome of measurement will be many kilometers away AFTER that experiment has begun yet BEFORE measurement. However, there can't be any classical causal mechanism, because that would require the measurement by one experimenter to instantaneously transmit information to the system prepared by the other experimenter. In other words, these experiments violate the superluminal constraint and therefore locality in that they demonstrate a causal "link" between two systems that exists in "no-time".

The knowledge of some omniscient God is less of a violation of causality and less of a determining factor than such empirical results.

Whoa, I'm not sure what it means to prepare a system in a particular a state and then measure the system that someone else is doing far away.

 

[dust1n]

I'm interested in your POV. I've never considered the "fixed" concept. Suppose that I built a time machine and that I saw what you will do tomorrow. Did you lose your freewill the instant I observed your tomorrow's actions?

Close. It's more like, if the universe where in such a state in which it was possible to see what "will" will do tomorrow, then free will is not possible. Yea, so, looking into the future actions of any given being at any time is very problematic. I'm not sure such a thing is possible though.

 

[dust1n]

Now you are merely chasing your own tail.

I'm just not sure what coercion on God's part is necessary. For humans to lack will because of God's knowledge does not necessarily require God consciously or purposefully overriding anything.

 

[Akivah]

Close. It's more like, if the universe where in such a state in which it was possible to see what "will" will do tomorrow, then free will is not possible. Yea, so, looking into the future actions of any given being at any time is very problematic. I'm not sure such a thing is possible though.

Well that didn't help my understanding of your POV.

So does having freewill makes the existence of time machines impossible OR there is no freewill because time machines are possible?

Do you think you have ever had freewill? Consider what you choose yesterday. If I tell you that G-d knew ahead of time what you choose yesterday, is that the reason you have no freewill?

If you don't believe in G-d and no entity saw ahead of your linear time what you choose yesterday, then would you regain your freewill?

 

[McBell]

I'm just not sure what coercion on God's part is necessary. For humans to lack will because of God's knowledge does not necessarily require God consciously or purposefully overriding anything.

The point is that gods knowledge alone does not interfere with free will.
Free will is the ability to choose unhindered.
So until such time as you can show how god knowing hinders/interferes/coerces, then it does not interfere with free will.

 

[Skwim]

If God already knows about our future choices then that means we're all programmed and have no free wills.

Not really. Regardless of what god knows or doesn't know, you have no free will anyway, but that's a whole other issue.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If I'm looking at a math problem, say 500+23=x, and I determine x=523, I'm not making it so.

You are actually. This is a bit more intuitive when we consider that x is a variable. The whole point of a variable is that it can vary. As soon as it is plugged into an equation where it is uniquely determined, it is a constant, not a variable. After all, if x really did equal 7, then we would just write "x" and "7" interchangeably.

Another way to look at this is contingency. Let x be an element of R (the real numbers). Clearly, it can vary. It can take on uncountably infinitely many values. The moment I plug it into an equation such as that you did, I make it's value contingent upon the values I've chosen to determine that "x=523".

Perhaps I should not say that God's knowledge determines the future, but that the future must be determined in order for God to have knowledge of it

This is certainly a good argument, and one not easily (or at least intuitively) overcome.

What would you call a "choice" that is "determined?"

Good question! Let's assume that I have two options (for simplicity and without loss of generality). If I can choose between the two, no matter what influences my choice, it must be that I could have chosen other than that I did. Intuitively, if God knows what my choice will be, then I cannot have made the other choice (the one other than that I did). But this is not actually so. This is why spacetime (or relativity, either special or general) is illuminating. Consider such a binary option from my "now" reference frame. There exists some set of (actually, infinitely many) reference frames in which my "now" is in the past. Yet hypothetical observers ("knowers") in these reference frames are (by the very laws of physics that are used to describe, model, dictate, etc., spacetime) incapable of causal efficacy. In fact, while they can know what my choice "must" have been when considering it after they are able to learn of it, they cannot know what it was at the moment I made it, being limited to their individual references frame (from a "global" perspective, my choice is "known" yet cannot be influenced by this knowledge without causal paradoxes and worse resulting).

Thus locally, I can make a choice such that I could have made one differently while there necessarily exist reference frames in which I have made that choice (and equally, those in which I have not). Determination, or strict causality of the relevant form, is only locally defined.

Are the two things related in the sense that pose similar problems to free will?

Absolutely. In fact, there are sections in physics monographs, volumes, and papers (and the same with metaphysics) in which both are discussed in the context of free will. For example, and just to argue against the position I have offered here, in his monograph Relativity and the Nature of Spacetime, Petkov argues that relativity entails the impossibility of free will. Gisin, Stapp, Penrose, and other eminent physicists have argued that free will follows from quantum nonlocality.

Whoa, I'm not sure what it means to prepare a system in a particular a state and then measure the system that someone else is doing far away.

Perhaps the most famous, cited paper in physics is EPR (Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?. Physical review, 47(10), 777.). In it, Einstein and co-authors sought to dismantle quantum mechanics by showing that one could determine the outcome of the measurement of an experiment arbitrarily far away before this measurement. In 1964, Bell famously provided a proof (“Bell’s inequality”) which enabled him to show mathematically that QM did indeed entail such nonlocal causality, and in 1982 Aspect and colleagues empirically realized it. It has been experimentally demonstrated many dozens of times since.

 

[McBell]

Not really. Regardless of what god knows or doesn't know you have no free will anyway, but that's a whole other issue.

**climbs onto pontoon boat**

 

[dust1n]

Well that didn't help my understanding of your POV.

So does having freewill makes the existence of time machines impossible OR there is no freewill because time machines are possible?

Sorry I will try to be clear. Your sentence is correct in my opinion. It is either the case that was have freewill, thus making looking into the future consequences of actions yet determined by free wills impossible OR there is no free will because it's a possibility to look at the future outcomes of decisions of "free wills" before they are made, meaning they are inevitable. I'm not saying either one of those two is the case. But you can replace time machine in this equation and God, and the result will still be same, because presumably even a time machine could be wrong for some reason.

Do you think you have ever had freewill?

Not really, but it's an independent matter from God's knowledge, since I don't believe in God or possessing the whole of knowledge.

Consider what you choose yesterday. If I tell you that G-d knew ahead of time what you choose yesterday, is that the reason you have no freewill?

The reason here, that I have no will, is because in order for God to know what I did yesterday in advance, my yesterday would have needed to be fixed in such a way that there could only be one possible answer. And when I say possible, I don't mean, like, possible in the sense that nothing is stopping my body from jumping off a cliff. I mean in the sense that, God calls the outcome of all possibilities with certainty. It's possible on the next coin flip the outcome will be heads or tails. But if God already knows what the outcome of the coin flip, then there is really a 50/50 chance. There is more of a 100% chance Gods known outcome is the outcome.

If you don't believe in G-d and no entity saw ahead of your linear time what you choose yesterday, then would you regain your freewill?

Not necessarily. It's possible in my mind that the future could already exist in such a manner, regardless of actual potential for any entity to observe it.



Sorry for the late reply.

 

[dust1n]

The point is that gods knowledge alone does not interfere with free will.

That is fair. The point that in for a God to possess such a knowledge, there could not be a free will. A world devoid of free will is a necessarily precondition to determine with certainty the outcome of various choices humans make, whether it be God, or aliens, or Bill & Ted.

Free will is the ability to choose unhindered.
So until such time as you can show how god knowing hinders/interferes/coerces, then it does not interfere with free will.

Let's take three people. You, someone with an IQ of 50, and someone with a heroin addiction. I might ask myself, how will these three people exercise their will tomorrow. Well, presumably you will go to work, the person with the low IQ will probably require care, and the person with the addiction will probably seek heroin. Do I know for certainty what any three will do? No. But God knows what they will do. You might take the day off, the person with a low IQ might write a sonata, and the person with the heroin addiction might check themselves into rehab. But I could know with a reasonable degree of certainty you'll got to work, IQ of 50 = needing living assistance, heroin addict will look for heroin. How is it possible for me to garnish such knowledge? Because it's made up. I made up it based on my experiences. How is it possible for God to garnish such knowledge?

 

[dust1n]

You are actually. This is a bit more intuitive when we consider that x is a variable. The whole point of a variable is that it can vary. As soon as it is plugged into an equation where it is uniquely determined, it is a constant, not a variable. After all, if x really did equal 7, then we would just write "x" and "7" interchangeably.

Another way to look at this is contingency. Let x be an element of R (the real numbers). Clearly, it can vary. It can take on uncountably infinitely many values. The moment I plug it into an equation such as that you did, I make it's value contingent upon the values I've chosen to determine that "x=523".

Darn you linguistics. Perhaps just saying 500 + 23 = 523 would have been better than using x.

This is certainly a good argument, and one not easily (or at least intuitively) overcome.

Thanks. I'll stick with the better revision then.

Good question! Let's assume that I have two options (for simplicity and without loss of generality). If I can choose between the two, no matter what influences my choice, it must be that I could have chosen other than that I did. Intuitively, if God knows what my choice will be, then I cannot have made the other choice (the one other than that I did). But this is not actually so. This is why spacetime (or relativity, either special or general) is illuminating. Consider such a binary option from my "now" reference frame. There exists some set of (actually, infinitely many) reference frames in which my "now" is in the past.

Following so far..

Yet hypothetical observers ("knowers") in these reference frames are (by the very laws of physics that are used to describe, model, dictate, etc., spacetime) incapable of causal efficacy.

A little lost, as I'm not sure what you mean by "incapable of casual efficacy." I get that future perspectives are not capable of doing something... but I'm not sure what here.

In fact, while they can know what my choice "must" have been when considering it after they are able to learn of it, they cannot know what it was at the moment I made it, being limited to their individual references frame (from a "global" perspective, my choice is "known" yet cannot be influenced by this knowledge without causal paradoxes and worse resulting).

But presumably such a God entity could know another perspectives at any moment, while, I suppose other observers within the universe wouldn't be capable of actually placing... I guess events in time?

Thus locally, I can make a choice such that I could have made one differently while there necessarily exist reference frames in which I have made that choice (and equally, those in which I have not). Determination, or strict causality of the relevant form, is only locally defined.

I'm not sure I get the implication. Are reference frames looking at "alternative realities" here? Also, if determination is strictly a locally defined matter, wouldn't that play the utmost importance as far our locally expressing our wills?

Absolutely. In fact, there are sections in physics monographs, volumes, and papers (and the same with metaphysics) in which both are discussed in the context of free will. For example, and just to argue against the position I have offered here, in his monograph Relativity and the Nature of Spacetime, Petkov argues that relativity entails the impossibility of free will. Gisin, Stapp, Penrose, and other eminent physicists have argued that free will follows from quantum nonlocality.

How is nonlocality suppose to create free will?

Perhaps the most famous, cited paper in physics is EPR (Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?. Physical review, 47(10), 777.). In it, Einstein and co-authors sought to dismantle quantum mechanics by showing that one could determine the outcome of the measurement of an experiment arbitrarily far away before this measurement. In 1964, Bell famously provided a proof (“Bell’s inequality”) which enabled him to show mathematically that QM did indeed entail such nonlocal causality, and in 1982 Aspect and colleagues empirically realized it. It has been experimentally demonstrated many dozens of times since.

Thanks. I wish I could better understand nonlocality to sort of understand why it is important if things only interact locally or not.

 

[McBell]

That is fair. The point that in for a God to possess such a knowledge, there could not be a free will. A world devoid of free will is a necessarily precondition to determine with certainty the outcome of various choices humans make, whether it be God, or aliens, or Bill & Ted.

Again, merely making the claim does not make it so.
You still have not shown how gods knowing something removes freewill.
you merely repeat the claim over and over.

Let's take three people. You, someone with an IQ of 50, and someone with a heroin addiction. I might ask myself, how will these three people exercise their will tomorrow. Well, presumably you will go to work, the person with the low IQ will probably require care, and the person with the addiction will probably seek heroin. Do I know for certainty what any three will do? No. But God knows what they will do. You might take the day off, the person with a low IQ might write a sonata, and the person with the heroin addiction might check themselves into rehab. But I could know with a reasonable degree of certainty you'll got to work, IQ of 50 = needing living assistance, heroin addict will look for heroin. How is it possible for me to garnish such knowledge? Because it's made up. I made up it based on my experiences. How is it possible for God to garnish such knowledge?

it matters not how god garnished the knowledge.
Merely having the knowledge does not remove free will.