Oh no not another free will thread.

[Minimalist]

Simple, huh?  Get to work.

Shh... You not suppose to let people know you hired me!

And none of them stinking prayer breaks during working hours. That's bullshit.

[Mystic]

Shh... You not suppose to let people know you hired me!

And none of them stinking prayer breaks during working hours. That's bullshit.

haha, you made my day! 

[Edwardo Piet]

Well, remove god entirely from it.  If the future -can be known-...but isn't known by anyone.  Can you do anything other than whatever it is you -will do-?

Yes, always.

Okay so look at it this way. Say you have options A, B and C. And you will do C. How can you choose A or B if you will do C?

[The Industrial Atheist]

This is why I'm not so good at my very shallow forays into philosophy. But I still get the idea that we're just looking at the possible outcomes.

[Minimalist]

And none of them stinking prayer breaks during working hours. That's bullshit.

haha, you made my day! 

You're developing a sense of humor, lad.  That's a good sign!

[Silver]

I think I get what Lut is saying. The concept that you chose what you wanted to, but it's also what's predicted. The god or whatever may know what you would do, but it didn't make you do anything. But maybe Khem and Hammy are seeing this purely through what the possible outcomes are.

Sort of. An impediment to free will, the freedom to choose, means that there is no choice whatsoever. There is always a choice, however, for there is no instance in any moment of our daily lives where we don't have the option to choose what we are going to do or say or act or behave or wear or drink or eat. A being knowing what we will do in no way cancels out free will. Rather, it probably reinforces it.

[Edwardo Piet]

The most important thing to note is that by denying one sense of free will I am not denying both. I'm not a fatalist: Meaning, I don't think that whatever will happen will happen regardless of what we do. What we do matters... if we just sat around doing nothing we wouldn't go out. The point is that our actions are part of the causal universe just as much as anything else, they're no less important, we just ultimately can't choose them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would the outcome be previously knowable?

Lot's of answer to that question, but the criticism of free will Lut is discussing explicitly assumes a knowable outcome to the event as an exploration of how a being with that ability would present a problem for classical free will.  Other answers could be:

-we live in an entirely deterministic and knowable universe.
-we live in a fatalistic universe
etc.

You find yourself in a situation where you have to choose a shirt.  You have shirt A, you have shirt B.  You're going to choose shirt b, this is a knowable future state.  Can you choose shirt a?  No, you are going to choose shirt b.  I guess you made a choice, but what freedom did you exert in an event with a previously knowable outcome?

Of course I can choose shirt A.  Someone "knowing" the future does not mean the future is set in stone.

Then they never knew that you would choose shirt b.  Knowledge of the future in the sense relevant to omni gods purported ability explicitly requires that the x in question be set in stone as true.  Just as the outcome of your choice being fundamentally knowable (even if no one knows it, not even you) also sets that outcome in stone. Foir what it;s worth, I think the latter part of my paranethesis describes a significant amount of the things we think we leverage some free will for..but don;t...even if we do, also, have a free will.

Remember the scrooge bit? Things that will be, not things that could be, maybe.

I've already stated this. The future can always be changed despite one's knowledge of it.

Personally, I think that knowledge of the future would be a hell of a tool to change the future, if the future could be changed.

[Edwardo Piet]

I think I get what Lut is saying. The concept that you chose what you wanted to, but it's also what's predicted. The god or whatever may know what you would do, but it didn't make you do anything. But maybe Khem and Hammy are seeing this purely through what the possible outcomes are.

He doesn't have to make you do anything though. It just means that because he knows you will do it, you will do it.

[Silver]

He doesn't have to make you do anything though. It just means that because he knows you will do it, you will do it.

Which alone does not cancel out free will.