Is Omniscience and Time Paradox a Logical Fallacy?

[mogthew]

I was pondering an interesting situation the other day, and am interested to hear others thoughts on the issue.

There is a room, inside the room is the hypothetical god (Omniscient and omnipotent in this situation). A person enters the room, and sits down. God offers the person a blue pill and a red pill :P. Before the person entered the room he/she decided that he/she would pick the opposite colour to what the omniscient being said.

The person asks the omniscient being what colour pill he/she will choose, and the being has to respond truthfully either 'red' or 'blue'.

Obviously no matter what the omniscient being says, the person will choose the opposite to that, meaning that the being was wrong, meaning that an omnipotent being cannot do something as simple as telling you what colour pill you will choose (in this situation)

Does that mean its logically fallacious to be omniscient and see the future? And does it also present that the notion that free will is absolute (unhinderable by forces known or unknown)?

Interested to hear what you guys think.

 

[arunbg]

Of course the omniscent "God in a room" knew what colour He was going to say the person would choose and consequently or otherwise knew what colour the person would choose. His omniscence is not lost, but even God doesn't have free will that's all

 

[baywax]

Just because omnigod knows what colour you are going to choose does not mean you don't have free will.

Your free will is only thwarted when omnigod chooses the colour for you.

 

[arunbg]

I was only trying to say that omnigod knew what colour He was going to choose, but still had no free will himself. All this is hypothesis of course.

Clearly, in the OP's situation there cannot arise a question of refuting omniscence or supporting free will. The argument does not deal with the fact whether it is the omnigod that decides which colour the person chooses, only then can an issue of freewill come into the picture as baywax rightly pointed out.

 

[PIT2]

The omnigod knows that the person will choose the opposite pill as the one he suggests, so omnigod is making the decision. If he wants the person to take the red pill, he suggests blue.

 

[mogthew]

The omnigod knows that the person will choose the opposite pill as the one he suggests, so omnigod is making the decision. If he wants the person to take the red pill, he suggests blue.

But then he has not answered truthfully. If the omnigod is trully an omnigod, and has to answer truthfully it cannot answer correctly in this hypothesis.

BTW the omnigod does not choose the colour for the person, it only says what colour the person will choose.

 

[xantox]

If the prediction of an oracle about a system is known by such system, then the oracle becomes part of it, and is no longer an oracle for it.

 

[baywax]

The omnigod knows that the person will choose the opposite pill as the one he suggests, so omnigod is making the decision. If he wants the person to take the red pill, he suggests blue.

Do omnigods have to sink to the depths of using reverse psychology?!

 

[JoeDawg]

and the being has to respond truthfully either 'red' or 'blue'.

What does responding truthfully have to do with omniscience?

 

[Surrealist]

Gods answer:

You will choose <psi| H |psi>...
where H = operator defining the physical act of choosing a color
and |psi> = (1/2)^(1/2) * ( |BLUE, RED> - |RED, BLUE> )

If you're wondering why God prefers singlets to triplets... my answer is Occam's razor.