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Is it possible for you to do anything that God did not already know you would do?

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
...round and round, round and round...
Perhaps instead of insult, you could explain how timelessness inevitably leads to choice being impossible...

If free will was used in making the future choices, then we still have said free will to use when we of the perceived now reach the moment of those decisions. The fact that they are already made does not change that we have yet to make them and we still have all of the available options before us.

bleh i hope this makes sense to someone other than myself
Indeed... it does. I think ;)

The thing is, if the past were to change, were you to have drank the pepsi, we would never know that that drinking of the pepsi was different. Given an ability to disregard time, the past could have change numerous instances without our knowledge, as we would be a product of that changed past.

I don't believe that it will, because the you who decided not to drink the pepsi is the same you still deciding not to drink the pepsi. The only reason for a change would be an outside influence, and if all times exist concurrently, then all outside influences will have already acted. So it will not. Will not, and can not are not the same.
 

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
Perhaps instead of insult, you could explain how timelessness inevitably leads to choice being impossible...

If free will was used in making the future choices, then we still have said free will to use when we of the perceived now reach the moment of those decisions. The fact that they are already made does not change that we have yet to make them and we still have all of the available options before us.

If omniscience exists, there is no future. Time would be an illusion. Everything has already happened - it's just that those of us caught up in the illusion of time don't percieve it that way.
 

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
If omniscience exists, there is no future. Time would be an illusion. Everything has already happened - it's just that those of us caught up in the illusion of time don't percieve it that way.
Indeed... I've argued just that... However, we are temporal beings, we perceive a past and a future. So if free will was used in the choices of what I perceive to be the future, then when I reach those already made, but not yet made, decisions, then I will have free will as well.
 

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
Indeed... I've argued just that... However, we are temporal beings, we perceive a past and a future. So if free will was used in the choices of what I perceive to be the future, then when I reach those already made, but not yet made, decisions, then I will have free will as well.

If the choice has already been made, then you have no real choice. Free will would be an illusion, just as time would be an illusion.
 

JMorris

Democratic Socialist
Perhaps instead of insult, you could explain how timelessness inevitably leads to choice being impossible...

If free will was used in making the future choices, then we still have said free will to use when we of the perceived now reach the moment of those decisions. The fact that they are already made does not change that we have yet to make them and we still have all of the available options before us.


Indeed... it does. I think ;)

The thing is, if the past were to change, were you to have drank the pepsi, we would never know that that drinking of the pepsi was different. Given an ability to disregard time, the past could have change numerous instances without our knowledge, as we would be a product of that changed past.

I don't believe that it will, because the you who decided not to drink the pepsi is the same you still deciding not to drink the pepsi. The only reason for a change would be an outside influence, and if all times exist concurrently, then all outside influences will have already acted. So it will not. Will not, and can not are not the same.

if their are outside influences at any time, then that effects free will.
changing a past event dosent change the time, it changes the self, and if the self is changed, then the reality around it would be changed, it changed the dimension, it changes the path that time has taken.
it is debatable if the past self and the present self is the same being. physically speaking, my body has completly replaced itself several times over the course of my life (cells dying and replacing ect). i am not the same person mentally as i was at the age of 12. i have the same memories, but i am not the same person inside or out.
if all times exist concurrently, that still effects free will. if the future exists, then the future of that future exists, and for that to happen, the future-future would exist based on what happened in the future. my future choices create my future-future, but those future "choices" have already been made in the perspective of my present observation, so i can see how those "choices" effect my future-future.

you are ignoring that if the future is known, then those "decisions" have been made. for the sake of arguement, lets assume that there is free will, and that the future is knowable. you could say your future self negates your future-future self's free will by creating his reality based on choices he had no choice in.
we can agree that if the future is known, and in the future you drink a pepsi, you will drink the pepsi when the time comes. what you cant ignore is the fact that the choices has already been made. it has already created the future-future. so i only become an actor in my own reality, where my choices have already been decided ahead of time. if you say those choices were decided by me, then i become the god of my own reality. and i can see how it would seem that the choice was free will, but if its already been made, then i am mearly going through the motions to get to that already known choice. i think the thoughts im supposed to have, and i come to the conclusion that creates the future ahead of my present
 

JMorris

Democratic Socialist
Only if they are not yet to be made as well...

you cant say all choices have been made, and no choices have been made. if time exists concurrently, then all choices have been made

as atotalstranger said: "There is no yet. There is no time."
 

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
you cant say all choices have been made, and no choices have been made.
But that is exactly what I am saying... all choices have been made, and all choices have yet to be made, and all choices are currently being made.
 

JMorris

Democratic Socialist
But that is exactly what I am saying... all choices have been made, and all choices have yet to be made, and all choices are currently being made.

then that would negate free will. i really dont feel like explaining it again, i think i did a good enough job, if you dont believe it, then you dont believe it.
 

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
But that is exactly what I am saying... all choices have been made, and all choices have yet to be made, and all choices are currently being made.

All choices have been made and all choices have yet to be made is a logical contradiction. The choices are either known, or they are not.
 

JMorris

Democratic Socialist
All choices have been made and all choices have yet to be made is a logical contradiction. The choices are either known, or they are not.

i think argueing this is an act of futility. he has chosen not to believe it, it dosent matter how ilogical it is.
 

JMorris

Democratic Socialist
atleast Mr Emu had creative arguements, no one else did. but in the end it just boiled down to the same thing
 

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
All choices have been made and all choices have yet to be made is a logical contradiction.
Not if all times exist concurrently, or there is no time. If the past exists I have not made this post yet, have not typed this sentence, if the present currently exists I have. If both exist I have and have not.
 

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
Not if all times exist concurrently, or there is no time. If the past exists I have not made this post yet, have not typed this sentence, if the present currently exists I have. If both exist I have and have not.

If there is no time, there is no past. If everything that will ever happen is known, there is no past, there is no present, there is no future - there is no time, period. All events could then perceived as static occurences frozen in time. There would be no way to change them - there could only be one outcome. Therefore, no choices - no free will.
 

JMorris

Democratic Socialist
If there is no time, there is no past. If everything that will ever happen is known, there is no past, there is no present, there is no future - there is no time, period. All events could then perceived as static occurences frozen in time. There would be no way to change them - there could only be one outcome. Therefore, no choices - no free will.

im not sure how any more clear that could be
 

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
Therefore, no choices - no free will.
One outcome does not mean no choices. That we freely choose our actions in all times concurrently is an option.
 
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