Free Will and Omnipotence: Can They Coexist?

[rewebster]

If you 'think' you have 'free will' , then you're one step ahead of being used and abused (avoidence of fear).

 

[setAI]

the greatest understanding about consciousness that Marvin Minsky discovered was identifying and defining 'free will' as merely 'ignorance of one’s own thought process'

it is a eureka! moment- consider that when a conscious agent makes a 'choice' they feel like they are deciding with a Will what to do next- however an examination of what is really going on reveals that a 'choice' is a set of essentially deterministic neural interactions that take place unconsciously- once the jumble of 'choices' are resolved into a 'decision' THAT is when the consciousness begins to be aware that it is 'making a choice' about something- however this is entirely an involuntary process guided by the rules of neurochemistry that the consciousness merely witnesses the end-result which only feels as if a choice is being made-

Apprentice: I'm afraid that I have to agree with you. If they have consciousness at all, it seems too shallow to be of much use. But what could have made them evolve that way?

Surveyor: It is because of how they started out. To make up for the slow speed of their neurons, their brains evolved to use parallel distributed processing. In other words, most of their decisions are made by adding up the outputs of thousands of brain cells - and most brain cells are involved in thousands of different types of decisions.

Apprentice: So each operation is distributed over many brain cells? I suppose that helps them keep going when some of the brain cells fail to work.

Surveyor: That's the good news. The bad news is that the trillions of synapses involved in this make it almost impossible for the other parts of their brain to figure out how those decisions are made. So far as their higher level reasoning can tell, those decisions just happen - without any cause.

Apprentice: Is that what they refer as "freedom of will?"

Surveyor: Precisely. It means not knowing what your reasons are.
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[Quatl]

If there is an omnipotent god, how can we have free will? An omnipotent being would know the future, therefore the future would be set down, and we could not make decisions for ourselves.

I think that there are two very different ideas that are usually grouped into Free Will, that don't really belong together. This results in apparent paradoxes like the one you're asking about.

One idea is freedom of choice, and the other is freedom of outcomes. It is not inconsistent to have the former and not the later. Ultimately I think that freedom of choice requires (I could also say creates) a lack of freedom of outcome.

An agent looking at it's situation and deciding on a specific course of action is deterministic in the sense that it will make the same judgment with the same data. The outcome for that set of cases can be said to be predetermined just as an aspect of the system as a whole. In this sense "non-deterministic Free Will" is a concept which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

To rephrase that: Free Will like systems can never have freedom of outcomes, because by their nature they make choices based on information that they have available. Having perfect information doesn't change this.

I think that the concept of free will that is implied in your question (and many others) is not internally consistent. In the normal realm in which Free Will is assumed to exist, this refinement of meaning has no negative effects that I can see.

 

[Moridin]

The metaphysical free will does not exist, but one can do things voluntarily. Your subconscious starts acting before you conscious know what is happening. If you had the same genetic and environmental influences as any given mass murderer, you would have done the same thing. The key is to understand causality.

 

[JoeDawg]

The metaphysical free will does not exist, but one can do things voluntarily. Your subconscious starts acting before you conscious know what is happening. If you had the same genetic and environmental influences as any given mass murderer, you would have done the same thing. The key is to understand causality.

Freewill is all about being able to do something you want to do. When you have competing choices, based on your tendencies, you are going to choose a certain course in a certain circumstance, but the question is, could someone of a different tendency, but the same ability, in the same circumstance, choose a different path. If so, you have freewill. People get confused when they start thinking about someone's ability to choose what they 'wouldn't normally', just for the sake of making an alternate choice. Then you just get into a recursive loop of 'if I don't want to make a choice I would normally make... but knowing what I would normally do...' There really is no normal standard, because each choice is a sum of all that went before, including the recursive nonsense, regardless the choice gets made.

Whether someone, god or other, knows you are going to make a certain choice, really has no bearing on it, unless they are forcing either a tendency on you (which an omnipotent god would be doing) or forcing the actual course of action on you, either coercively or by physical force.

 

[Tattva]

God is a Big Person

I think of free will as this:

There are certain moments when we really take a decision. Once we do, it starts a chain of events that follow certain very complicated rules and we have no way to modify them. In a certain moment ahead in the near or far future, the events reach an equilibrium, and then we have another chance to make a big decision. This process goes on and on, until we simply die.

As for an omniscient God, you have said all the classic arguments. I only will add the posibility that God doesn´t like to know the "end of the story". Probably He enjoys with some of our stories, and He just like to be ignorant of the events to come, just like we like (in fact, we like so because He likes so). This is for understanding that God has emotions and habits, not just intelligence. He is not a computer, but a person, a Big Person.

I like to think He is very curious, and that implies there are some things He doesn´t know. And that is the cause that we ourselves are curious, because He is (in first place).

 

[meaningoflight]

I believe that the omni-present God and free will both exist mutually. Meaning that we act upon our own judgement, and what we decide is ours. That decision though, was already understood before we did it. Of coarse this is if you believe in the common meaning of "GOD". For example, a poor one but touches what I'm trying to explain. If you put a chil in front of 2 different choices of games, one being his favorite, the other being his least favorite, he will pick the favorite. I knew the outcome, not because of knowing the future, but reviewing the past that led up to this moment of choice for the future. Thus stating he chose this for a reason, but not effecting his free will in the matter. An example in nature would be, the famous underwater team of the fish and the crab that live together and help each other. Now couldn't you say that one of them could run off, even though it is blind and needs the other site, but could do this if it wanted to? It doesn't though, it chooses to stay, and work together. It's own free will was not interrupted, but do to the past reasons that led up to this decision of biological co-existence, it was what was meant to be. Hopefully I didn't get off track, that happens a lot to me.lol

 

[DaveC426913]

An example in nature would be, the famous underwater team of the fish and the crab that live together and help each other. Now couldn't you say that one of them could run off, even though it is blind and needs the other site, but could do this if it wanted to? It doesn't though, it chooses to stay, and work together. It's own free will was not interrupted

No. The crabs are not acting on free will; they are acting on instinct - they are preprogrammed. They do not "choose" to stay; they stay because the instinctual tug-of-war between "you are hungry" and "you are in danger" currently favours staying.

But I do see and grant you your point about the children (all witty comments about 'children acting on instinct' aside).

 

[sd01g]

If anyone (or any entity) has all power in all locations and all and complete knowledge--past, present, and future--of, or in, all locations, then no one (or no entity) would ever have any free choice in any location at any time--past, present, or future.

 

[DaveC426913]

If anyone (or any entity) has all power in all locations and all and complete knowledge--past, present, and future--of, or in, all locations, then no one (or no entity) would ever have any free choice in any location at any time--past, present, or future.

This is the the point under discussion, yes. But it is not shown to be true.

 

[sd01g]

This is the the point under discussion, yes. But it is not shown to be true.

To know the future absolutely is to know the future at every instant of time for eternity. This requires that no change of any kind take place. If there are changes to any instance of time at any time in the future, then the future was not known for that particular point in time.

ALL POWERFUL is a very good example of combining two words with emperical meaning to produce a concept the has no empirical meaning. It is impossible to evaluate GOD when the concept is defined with terms such as 'beyond time and space' (which is totally meaningless) and 'all powerful' which is empirically meaningless. This is why, in matters of religion, faith is so important.

 

[JoeDawg]

This is why, in matters of religion, faith is so important.

Faith is only important if you believe nonsense.

 

[sd01g]

Faith is only important if you believe nonsense.

If one defines a higher power in terms of concepts that have rational and empirical significance, and avoids meaningless terms and concepts such as 'exists outside of time and space' and 'omnipotent', a lot less faith is required to believe.

 

[JoeDawg]

If one defines a higher power in terms of concepts that have rational and empirical significance, and avoids meaningless terms and concepts such as 'exists outside of time and space' and 'omnipotent', a lot less faith is required to believe.

When faith is grafted into science, we generally call that 'bad science'. Using empirical terms and concepts to describe irrational beliefs may make the sales job easier, but that doesn't make the product any less like snake oil. Faith is belief without evidence, or in spite of the evidence, so really its the same 'amount of faith', its just more confused by inappropriate terms. This is what the so-called 'intelligent designers' are trying to sell.

 

[meaningoflight]

I'm not a religous type, but to the comment above, I don't think it's bad science, it further helps bring fourth the idea that beacuse you believe in science, doesn't mean you can't believe in religous views. I'm a science man, but why can't evolution be discovering the process of creation? Or why can't the big bang be an explained mathematical reason to show what the creation was, ect. I think you get the piont, but I'm seriously asking, not being rude. I would like to see what people say. Very interesting topic for me. I wrote many papers in school on why the border and not the connection. Just like a wise man once said, "Let the people of the church tell us why we are here, but allow us to keep explaining how that process happened. Sorry, I'm tired, probably messed that one up. lol

 

[DaveC426913]

To know the future absolutely is to know the future at every instant of time for eternity. This requires that no change of any kind take place. If there are changes to any instance of time at any time in the future, then the future was not known for that particular point in time.

Non sequitur. I do not grant that that your second statement follows from your first, nor that your third follows from your second.

When we speak of the ability to see past present and future, we no longer speak of "changes" in a "linear" timeline. It would be like a driver on a one-dimensional road coming upon a fork in the road and speaking of it as a "change" in the layout of the city. You and I know the city hasn't changed at all, and we can easily see the 2-dimensional layout of the roads.

 

[JoeDawg]

I'm not a religous type, but to the comment above, I don't think it's bad science, it further helps bring fourth the idea that beacuse you believe in science, doesn't mean you can't believe in religous views.

Holding a religious view when their is no evidence to the contrary is not bad science, its just not science. People who believe in UFOs or Bigfoot are no different. Trying to use the language or concepts of science to support a (religious) claim without actual scientific method and evidence, is dishonest. When one accepts the fact that their religious claims have no scientific basis, one is at least being honest, if not rational. Kierkegaard for instance went to great lengths to justify religion, specifically a Christian style god, on the basis of the irrational being more profound than the rational.

I'm a science man, but why can't evolution be discovering the process of creation?

It could be, but there is no scientific basis to believe so, so its not science. Evolution is simply a description of what is, and it has a mountain of scientific evidence. Things like 'intelligent design' don't view evolution as part of creation, they view it as false. Humans by their reckoning were created from dust by a magical sky elf. They are relying on the 'revealed truth' from a dusty old book, not scientific method and are in fact rejecting that mountain of evidence in order to maintain their god given 'truth'.

Or why can't the big bang be an explained mathematical reason to show what the creation was, ect. I think you get the piont, but I'm seriously asking, not being rude. I would like to see what people say. Very interesting topic for me. I wrote many papers in school on why the border and not the connection. Just like a wise man once said, "Let the people of the church tell us why we are here, but allow us to keep explaining how that process happened. Sorry, I'm tired, probably messed that one up. lol

"God created this or that" doesn't fall down because a being such as a god couldn't have done something in line with the scientific explanation. It falls down because there is no need nor evidence for such a thing as God and every argument for the existence of God suffers from self-contradiction. Now this may indeed be because we don't understand 'what god really is', but until someone formulates what it is and how it exists and shows evidence for it, its mere fantasy, like unicorns and celestial teapots.

 

[sd01g]

Non sequitur. I do not grant that that your second statement follows from your first, nor that your third follows from your second.

When we speak of the ability to see past present and future, we no longer speak of "changes" in a "linear" timeline. It would be like a driver on a one-dimensional road coming upon a fork in the road and speaking of it as a "change" in the layout of the city. You and I know the city hasn't changed at all, and we can easily see the 2-dimensional layout of the roads.

We probably do not agree on the meaning of 'to know the future'. There is a difference between guessing the future and knowing the future. One can guess the future and be right as in picking a winning lotto ticket, but the winner did not know the future. All human attempts to know the future are just guesses or short-term projections and only some of them are right or partially right.

To speculate on some higher power 'knowing the future' in an absolute sense is just that--pure speculation. To know the future requires a rational construct to move into the realm of ideas.

Could you maybe explain a driver on a one-dimensional road. I am unaware of any one-dimensional roads or any driver ever encountering anything of one-dimension.

 

[out of whack]

To know the future absolutely is to know the future at every instant of time for eternity. This requires that no change of any kind take place. If there are changes to any instance of time at any time in the future, then the future was not known for that particular point in time.

Non sequitur. I do not grant that that your second statement follows from your first, nor that your third follows from your second.

I don't understand your objection. Let me expound on the argument.

From the first sentence, if you don't know the future at every instant of time for eternity then you don't know the future absolutely. I think it holds true simply by agreeing that this is what "absolutely" means. I suppose that a different adverb could be used but that's not really essential to the argument.

The second sentence "This requires that no change of any kind take place" may be a little ambiguous because of the use of the verb "change". But the word does not refer to the changes involved as the future unfolds, it means that the future must not deviate (change) from what you know. If the future deviates from what you know of it then you do not actually know it. Clearly, if you truly know the future, then the future is already set: it corresponds to what you know.

 

[JoeDawg]

We probably do not agree on the meaning of 'to know the future'. There is a difference between guessing the future and knowing the future. One can guess the future and be right as in picking a winning lotto ticket, but the winner did not know the future. All human attempts to know the future are just guesses or short-term projections and only some of them are right or partially right.

There is a simple human analogy for describing 'knowing the future'.

Its the past. For a being that knows the future, it would simply be like a human knowing the past. All you have to do is eliminate the arrow of time. This doesn't really put limits on 'freewill' however, since knowing the past doesn't. Compare that once the lotto has been run, and you now know you have the winning ticket, its not that your odds of winning have changed, just because you won.

 

[Bob]

I think that there are two very different ideas that are usually grouped into Free Will, that don't really belong together. This results in apparent paradoxes like the one you're asking about.

One idea is freedom of choice, and the other is freedom of outcomes. It is not inconsistent to have the former and not the later. Ultimately I think that freedom of choice requires (I could also say creates) a lack of freedom of outcome.

I agree with you. we don't know future. What we do can change nothing. Everything is in the plan.
We make choices and things happened naturally. Creator supports all things by rules or miracle.
Making choices and things happened depends on grace, so we think that we can do what I want to do. But we can't do all things we want to do.

 

[DaveC426913]

To speculate on some higher power 'knowing the future' in an absolute sense is just that--pure speculation. To know the future requires a rational construct to move into the realm of ideas.

OK, the foirst thing we're gonig to have to agree on is that knowin g hte future is not rational. We know of no mechanism - even theoretically - by which it could happen.

As soon as we beign discussingt this, we are forced to enter the realm of philosophy.

Could you maybe explain a driver on a one-dimensional road. I am unaware of any one-dimensional roads or any driver ever encountering anything of one-dimension.

Are you aware of any omniscient future-seeing events or entities? No?


But to humour you, neither the driver nor the road has to physcially be one-dimensional. All it means is that the driver's choices and perception vary in only one direction. If he can go North and South, he has one degree of freedom and might pass "Drugs Hotel Drugs Hotel"*. But if he comes to a fork in the road, his world might change to "coffee-table lamp coffee-table lamp"**. His path on the road was unknown to him. For his perception, the world has changed along a direction of freedom he can perceive (North-South)

But we, flying in a plane over the city, can easily see both routes. We know that both paths exist, and that the cityscape has NOT had to be rearranged in order for for Mr. driver to experience a change in his world.


**Flintstones reference

 

[Quasarus]

IMHO, freedom of will does not contradict the determination.
Freedom (which may be quite limited) exists for a human, in his first person perspective.
But when the Universe is looked upon from the outside perspective and seen as, for example, as 4-dimensional time-space, everything may be seen as predetermined.

If we are hard to prove the existence of the Creator,
can we prove at least the subjective-objective existence of the Universe,
where the human beings are a subjective-objective part of it?
Or the Universe is purely objective?

 

[DaveC426913]

IMHO, freedom of will does not contradict the determination.
Freedom (which may be quite limited) exists for a human, in his first person perspective.
But when the Universe is looked upon from the outside perspective and seen as, for example, as 4-dimensional time-space, everything may be seen as predetermined.

This is tantamount to saying you believe that we do NOT have free will (whether we THINK we do is another matter).

 

[JoeDawg]

IMHO, freedom of will does not contradict the determination.

I agree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

 

[Quasarus]

If you look, for example, on Napoleon's life you can see his life as a whole.

If I cannot see the future, that does not mean the future does not exist.

If the future exist then it is determined, is determined by one's will too.

 

[Xori]

I agree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

In order for free will and determinism to co-exist, you have to change the defintion of free will, which is exactly what compatibilism does.

But if you except determinism, then truly free will can not exist, only the appearance of one.

 

[JoeDawg]

In order for free will and determinism to co-exist, you have to change the defintion of free will, which is exactly what compatibilism does.

But if you except determinism, then truly free will can not exist, only the appearance of one.

You're simply stating here that your definition of free will is the 'true' one, not really addressing what freewill is or isn't.

Compatibilism describes freewill in a way that is in accord with determinism and as Hume pointed out, freewill requires determinism. If you don't have cause and effect, you can't choose something, because what happens will be random, not what you 'chose'.

 

[Xori]

You're simply stating here that your definition of free will is the 'true' one, not really addressing what freewill is or isn't.

Compatibilism describes freewill in a way that is in accord with determinism and as Hume pointed out, freewill requires determinism. If you don't have cause and effect, you can't choose something, because what happens will be random, not what you 'chose'.

Which is why "true" free will can't exist, at least in my opinion. Only the illusion can exist as a result of us being complex machines.

 

[dilletante]

If there is an omnipotent god, how can we have free will? An omnipotent being would know the future, therefore the future would be set down, and we could not make decisions for ourselves.

If He is omnipotent (able to do anything), then shouldn't He be able to create something which is unpredictable, even to Himself? If not, then I guess you could say He is ALMOST omnipotent, except for that one little shortcoming.