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RE: Free will
May 14, 2016 at 3:20 pm
Rhythm,
Rhythm Wrote:Thanks for the heads up - I did miss your post.
I had wondered whether you had missed it or had just decided not to bother with it. Either way is entirely acceptable, so I didn't press it.
Rhythm Wrote:Honestly, you haven't changed much between our positions at this point.
As expected.
Rhythm Wrote:You're still denying what must be true of a claim to foreknowledge in order to maintain a claim to free will ...
I am certainly showing that the implications of foreknowledge are quite different than what you present them to be.
Rhythm Wrote:... and I still don't think we're talking about the same thing when we use words like choice or free will.
We will never know unless you explain the difference. I invite you to do so.
Rhythm Wrote:The anecdote regarding your -post- event knowledge of a random dice roll and how that speaks to -fore-knowledge was particularly inept - if you care about that sort of shit, lol.
By all means please explain what you mean, so that I may endeavor to be less inept in the future.
Regards,
Shadow_Man
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RE: Free will
May 14, 2016 at 3:29 pm
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2016 at 3:37 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(May 14, 2016 at 3:20 pm)Shadow_Man Wrote: I am certainly showing that the implications of foreknowledge are quite different than what you present them to be. Claims supporting claims.
Quote:We will never know unless you explain the difference. I invite you to do so.
Done that twice now. In my version of choice or free will there is at least the possibility that you could choose a - or- b. This is not the case, in the case of a true claim to foreknowledge. It's just a, or just b..whichever is described by the subject with foreknowledge.
Quote:By all means please explain what you mean, so that I may endeavor to be less inept in the future.
It should be fairly obvious that an anecdote regarding your knowledge of an event that's already happened doesn't have any applicability to the proposition of foreknowledge or it's consequences. Perhaps, if, in your anecdote...you had -foreknowledge- of the dice roll, you could have arrived at some insight...regarding...foreknowledge.
More fundamentally, if you hadn't been arguing, with that anecdote, that your -post- knowledge of the dice roll didn't make it happen that way...a claim that wasn't even made about foreknowledge, it would have had some relevance to our discussion at all.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Free will
May 14, 2016 at 4:58 pm
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2016 at 4:59 pm by IATIA.)
Free will is simply a choice for which there is no foreknowledge of the decision that will be made.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
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RE: Free will
May 18, 2016 at 7:12 pm
dyresand,
dyresand Wrote:SO i will just say this SM is god all knowing yes or no i don't need a long witted talk or some half backed conclusion just a simple yes or no.
You engage me in discussion.
You ask me a question.
I give you my answer in the explicit form that you requested.
You do me the discourtesy of purposefully not reading it.
You do me the further discourtesy of accusing me of dodging the question I just answered.
Now you repeat the exact same question in a discourteously insulting way, and imagine that I should feel obligated to repeat my answer. I feel no such obligation. What you do or do not need is of no concern to me.
However, here is what I'll do, if you haven't already quit reading (just like you did before).
If you fulfill the following 2 conditions, I will absolutely commit to replying once again with a simple yes or no answer to the question of whether I personally believe that God is all-knowing. Fail to fulfill the conditions, and you will just have to go back and read what I already wrote.
1. Promise to be more courteous in the future - and by that I mean, among other things, that if you ask me a question you will commit to actually reading my full and complete response, whether or not you think a yes or no answer should suffice.
2. Show that my personal belief about whether God is all-knowing is relevant to the OP.
Shadow_Man
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RE: Free will
May 18, 2016 at 11:07 pm
(May 18, 2016 at 7:12 pm)Shadow_Man Wrote: 2. Show that my personal belief about whether God is all-knowing is relevant to the OP
It is relevant if, by "all-knowing", it includes knowledge of the future.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
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RE: Free will
May 21, 2016 at 1:20 pm
Rhythm,
Rhythm Wrote:Claims supporting claims.
Observations refuting your claim. You are the one making the claim here, not me.
Rhythm Wrote:Done that twice now.
Then it seems clear to me that we are talking about the same thing when we use words like choice or free will. I don't know why you think otherwise.
Rhythm Wrote:In my version of choice or free will there is at least the possibility that you could choose a - or- b.
In my version it is beyond mere possibility; it is absolutely certain that you have that choice.
Rhythm Wrote:This is not the case, in the case of a true claim to foreknowledge.
That is your claim - that foreknowledge precludes free will. It is not self-evident logic. You have not provided either justification or demonstration that you are correct. It is the very point that is in contention - whether prior knowledge of an outcome changes the nature of the process producing the outcome; changing it from a free choice to a constrained choice. You think that the only logical answer is constraint. I think that our observations of time, the nature of events, and the nature of free will contradict that answer. We have actual life experience of enacting in the present our plans and expectations for the future, and watching as they pass into history.
Rhythm Wrote:It should be fairly obvious that an anecdote regarding your knowledge of an event that's already happened doesn't have any applicability to the proposition of foreknowledge or it's consequences. Foreknowledge is seeing the future. Seeing the future means seeing everything as events that have already happened. Thus, my anecdote is obviously and directly applicable. We know about events that have already happened. They are the exact record of the operation of our free will. They are the proof of our free will, not a contradiction of it.
Rhythm Wrote:More fundamentally, if you hadn't been arguing, with that anecdote, that your -post- knowledge of the dice roll didn't make it happen that way...a claim that wasn't even made about foreknowledge, it would have had some relevance to our discussion at all.
More fundamentally, we know about the distinction between knowledge of reality and the nature of reality. Knowledge of reality has no effect on the nature of reality. Thus, whether it is -fore-knowledge or -post-knowledge is irrelevant. It is still just knowledge. It has no effect on the nature of the event. It does not steal away our free will.
Regards,
Shadow_Man
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RE: Free will
May 21, 2016 at 3:21 pm
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2016 at 3:56 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
The question is not whether prior knowledge changes the process. The question is whether or not free will is coherent with foreknowledge.
By framing your response in this way you have assumed that free will exists as a process to be "changed" and are arguing against the notion that foreknowledge exerts a force capable of changing or constraining free will. I don't know if it does..and I've made no claim that it does. This is why it's pointless to respond in such a way. Which is exactly what I told you last time.
If foreknowledge is possible, the future is set. If a claim to foreknowledge is true, there is no a or b. There is only a, or only b..whichever is described by the foreknowledge. These statements -must- be true for the claim of foreknowledge to be true. If they are not true, then the claim of foreknowledge is not true.
To use your incredibly imprecise (and therefore highly suspect) language....if some being, let's call him "God"..... "sees" me "freely willing" a........is there -any- circumstance in which I could make a liar of him, make him wrong....and "freely will" b instead?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Free will
May 21, 2016 at 4:51 pm
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2016 at 4:53 pm by Ignorant.)
Consider an action (X) which includes the circumstances in which X will take place.
Assume that foreknowledge of your doing X in the future is possible.
X, therefore, is determined (i.e. it is absolutely certain that you will do X)
Either you do X of necessity (i.e. your NOT doing X is metaphysically impossible), or you do X contingently (i.e. your not doing X is metaphysically possible).
Assume that it is possible to foreknow which of the above is the case for X (n vs. c)
For example: If it is possible to foreknow an action Xc (i.e. an action of which the failure to obtain is a metaphysical possibility) AS contingent, then it is both determined and contingent.
You will certainly, therefore, do X, which is a contingent action.
If X a necessary action, it cannot be the case that it is done freely. If X is a contingent action, it is either done freely or not.
Assume it is possible to foreknow if Xc is done freely.
Then, you will certainly do X freely, which is a contingent action.
In short, contingency is a requisite for free action, but it is not equivalent. Neither contingency nor freedom contradict determinism, and neither absolutely require in-determinism. Rather, both are qualities of actions taking place within either hypothetical system: contingency dealing purely with the objective act, freedom dealing purely with the manner of the subject acting. <= That last part is important, because contingency (the metaphysical possibility of multiple actions) is not the same as freedom (knowing what you're doing, knowing the reason for which you are doing it, and doing what you know you're doing for the reason you know).
God's existence is not absolutely necessary for free action either within a deterministic model of the universe or with the opposite. If an all-knowing God did exist, his foreknowledge of human action would include (and would make real) the qualities of those actions.
One quick example. I drank a gin and tonic tonight. I, being human, am the sort of thing which is metaphysically capable of having a coca cola instead. If an all-knowing God eternally knew that I would drink that gin and tonic, then it was eternally determined that I would do it, even though, as a human being, I am metaphysically capable of drinking something else. In such a case, it was still a contingent action, even though it was a determined action. If God determined it, then it would be impossible that I not drink it; however, it would be equally impossible that drinking it was not contingent. If we can't get that part understood, then there is no point in trying to hash out the freedom part.
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RE: Free will
May 21, 2016 at 4:56 pm
(May 21, 2016 at 4:51 pm)Ignorant Wrote: Consider an action (X) which includes the circumstances in which X will take place.
Assume that foreknowledge of your doing X in the future is possible.
X, therefore, is determined (i.e. it is absolutely certain that you will do X)
Either you do X of necessity (i.e. your NOT doing X is metaphysically impossible), or you do X contingently (i.e. your not doing X is metaphysically possible).
Assume that it is possible to foreknow which of the above is the case for X (n vs. c)
For example: If it is possible to foreknow an action Xc (i.e. an action of which the failure to obtain is a metaphysical possibility) AS contingent, then it is both determined and contingent.
You will certainly, therefore, do X, which is a contingent action.
If X a necessary action, it cannot be the case that it is done freely. If X is a contingent action, it is either done freely or not.
Assume it is possible to foreknow if Xc is done freely.
Then, you will certainly do X freely, which is a contingent action.
In short, contingency is a requisite for free action, but it is not equivalent. Neither contingency nor freedom contradict determinism, and neither absolutely require in-determinism. Rather, both are qualities of actions taking place within either hypothetical system: contingency dealing purely with the objective act, freedom dealing purely with the manner of the subject acting. <= That last part is important, because contingency (the metaphysical possibility of multiple actions) is not the same as freedom (knowing what you're doing, knowing the reason for which you are doing it, and doing what you know you're doing for the reason you know).
God's existence is not absolutely necessary for free action either within a deterministic model of the universe or with the opposite. If an all-knowing God did exist, his foreknowledge of human action would include (and would make real) the qualities of those actions.
One quick example. I drank a gin and tonic tonight. I, being human, am the sort of thing which is metaphysically capable of having a coca cola instead. If an all-knowing God eternally knew that I would drink that gin and tonic, then it was eternally determined that I would do it, even though, as a human being, I am metaphysically capable of drinking something else. In such a case, it was still a contingent action, even though it was a determined action. If God determined it, then it would be impossible that I not drink it; however, it would be equally impossible that drinking it was not contingent. If we can't get that part understood, then there is no point in trying to hash out the freedom part.
god knows everything there for everything is predeterministic meaning X is the path you will follow no matter what.
god doesn't know everything and limited you can follow X you can follow what ever you want.
Then again the same thing can be applied to a creator himself. If god knows everything he/she/it is only doing this not because it want's to
said beings actions are already pre determined from the get go.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today.
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RE: Free will
May 21, 2016 at 5:11 pm
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2016 at 5:36 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Why are you commenting upon determinism? Does it matter? You've overlooked fatalism, absurdism...etc.
Quote:One quick example. I drank a gin and tonic tonight. I, being human, am the sort of thing which is metaphysically capable of having a coca cola instead. If an all-knowing God eternally knew that I would drink that gin and tonic,
-snipped-
...then you -must- drink the gin and tonic, or the claim to foreknowledge is false. No "free will" there, regardless of there being a choice (and I prefer actual choices to metaphysical choices, thx).
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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