The fallacy of the omniscience argument

[Light Travelling]

Raithere,
It seems to me that the main problem of the omniscience / freewill argument is that it relies on one major assumption.

The assumption is this,
That in order for a god to know future events they must have already happened. (god basically becomes an external observer with prior knowledge of events)

This is however, not the only model under which omniscience may exist. In order to know all things a god would simply have to 'know all things' and by that I mean fully know and understand the exact nature and makeup of everything that exists (even be part of everything that exists); every creature, every physical law, time, humans, mind, consciousnes etc, a level of knowledge which we cannot begin to imagine.
Having this full and complete knowledge god may predict future events with 100% accuracy, and freewill still exists, as events have not occured.

A simple analgoy I can think of would be, if we conducted a simple physical experiment - an experiment in which we fully understood all the parameters and all the substances involved. We could with 100% accuracy predict the result (this does not mean the result has already occured). Now I know this does equate to omniscience, but extrapolate this to complete knowledge of the fundamental nature and needs of every thing, force and law in the universe and you will get somehwere close to omniscience of creator / god.

I think to use the omniscience / freewill argument god still has to be viewed as a seperate entity existing in (or out) of the unviverse, and not something that is a fundamental part of the universe.


Silas; no you were not patronising - my following of Rathieres logic was at fault and you are correct, I am not as fluent in the language of logic as others on this forum.

 

[Sarkus]

Raithere,
It seems to me that the main problem of the omniscience / freewill argument is that it relies on one major assumption.

The assumption is this,
That in order for a god to know future events they must have already happened. (god basically becomes an external observer with prior knowledge of events).

This is however, not the only model under which omniscience may exist. In order to know all things a god would simply have to 'know all things' and by that I mean fully know and understand the exact nature and makeup of everything that exists (even be part of everything that exists); every creature, every physical law, time, humans, mind, consciousnes etc, a level of knowledge which we cannot begin to imagine.
Having this full and complete knowledge god may predict future events with 100% accuracy, and freewill still exists, as events have not occured.

A simple analgoy I can think of would be, if we conducted a simple physical experiment - an experiment in which we fully understood all the parameters and all the substances involved. We could with 100% accuracy predict the result (this does not mean the result has already occured). Now I know this does equate to omniscience, but extrapolate this to complete knowledge of the fundamental nature and needs of every thing, force and law in the universe and you will get somehwere close to omniscience of creator / god.

I think to use the omniscience / freewill argument god still has to be viewed as a seperate entity existing in (or out) of the unviverse, and not something that is a fundamental part of the universe.

If you can predict future events with 100% accuracy then those events have NO FREE WILL.

Your experiment: The elements of the experiment HAVE NO FREE WILL - they cannot at any point choose not to do what they do - otherwise the outcome couldn't be predicted with 100% accuracy.

So your analogy and reasoning is flawed.
Omniscience and freewill can not logically co-exist, even using your definition of omniscience.


Where your idea is leading to, however, is one of Cause & Effect - if all the causes are known then the effect can be predicted with 100% accuracy. And you are saying that God, being omniscient, knows all the causes and thus the effect is predictable to 100%.

And this is the very same argument that some people use to refute the very existence of freewill.
They argue that all effects are caused, and if you knew all the causes you would know the effects 100% accurately.
They argue that all humans actually have is the illusion of freewill: I may think I'm choosing to do A rather than B - but the choices I make are all determined by the sum of the CAUSES up to that point - albeit with a bit of randomness thrown in.

Anyhoo - your argument above is a classic example for the disproving of the existence of Good Will.

 

[Light Travelling]

If you can predict future events with 100% accuracy then those events have NO FREE WILL.

Where your idea is leading to, however, is one of Cause & Effect - if all the causes are known then the effect can be predicted with 100% accuracy. And you are saying that God, being omniscient, knows all the causes and thus the effect is predictable to 100%.

I follow your reasoning and arguments but draw a different conclusion.

They argue that all humans actually have is the illusion of freewill: I may think I'm choosing to do A rather than B - but the choices I make are all determined by the sum of the CAUSES up to that point - albeit with a bit of randomness thrown in.

And I suppose here we get to the crux of it. We've talked about how we define omniscience but not about how we define freewill.

In the absolute sense of freewill / freedom, none of us have complete freedom or freewill. We are all constrained by physical laws (as our mind percieves them) and are indeed constrained by the abilities of the mind as well as by circumstance. So none of us has absolute freewill, and I dont think any desit or thesit would claim otherwise.

So it comes down to a question of what degree of freewill we are talking about, and it seems to me that the key thing is the ability to make a simple descision affecting our reality is what it comes down to.

And what I conclude is this;
Our mind creates a picture of reality for us from the oscillating particles it detects through the senses. This is what we call reality - it may not be 'absolute' reality but it is all most of us can comprehend.
Within that reality we are able to make decisions which affect that reality, and whether or not a supreme being is able to predict that choice based on knowledge of cause, we still experience freewill within the confines of our reality.

So to condense that a little;
When OMNISCIENCE is defined as knowledge of all CAUSES.
And FREEWILL is defined as the ability to experience CHOICE within reality as we are able to perceive it.
Then human FREEWILL and OMNISCIENT god can exist at the same time.


Of course I realise that if we are talking about 'absolute' reality and 'absolute' freewill, things may be different. But as none of us can define or comprehend 'absolute' reality the argument becomes a bit mute at this point.

 

[audible]

I repeat sufism: Here they mention the hadith qudsi in which God states, "I was a hidden treasure and I loved that I be known, so I created the creation in order to be known.")if any god refers to himself in the singular, as I, then he has an ego. there was no mistake on my part, also Guru Nanak (1469-1539) is a man and must have a personality, an ego, "To become a Khalsa, a Sikh must surrender him/her self completely to the supreme King or God and obey his will without question or delay. Only then a Sikh is called a "Khalsa". (Wikipedia) if it has a will, it has a ego.

 

[okinrus]

I'm aware of the circularity but it's cleaner than the non sequitir originally presented.

OK, but I still think there's a non-sequitir in the statement "if God knows beforehand the outcome of our choice, then we do not have free will" . Sure, it makes sense with free will defined as no one knowing beforehand the outcome. But free will is defined by most people as our ability to make a choice out of our own volition. Foreknowledge isn't even in the definition and doesn't really seem to affect our choice.

 

[wesmorris]

Raith is correct.

Your objection is to the premise, as he specified.

I don't remember seeing anyone argue what you say people argue in the opening post. I would reject the argument if they had.

IMO, the heart of the issue is as follows:

If you met god, how would you know it was god?

... and the argument that follows leads to a rational conclusion, or a faith based conclusion.

Rationally, you can't know... so anything else is faith.

You may believe me when I tell you I'm Wes, but that's because there is minimal (or no) consequence to you if you don't. If you believe me when I tell you I'm god, you've got a screw loose. I could imagine a being that one could demonstrate to be "GODLIKE", but one could never verify that a being is/was "god", as the "powers" of either being would be impossible to discern from one another - and you can imagine what would happen for instance, if a typical person of today had the ability to appear godlike to all the other people. Not a pretty thought. Something about absolute power corrupting absolutely corrupting or something.

How could you trust the motives of such a being? How could you verify their claim?

If the universe was designed by "god", it was done so in such a manner that this dillema is inherent. As such, it would seem that "god" purposefully rendered itself irrelevant, so as to let beings be what they are, without concerning themselves with such foolishness.

 

[cole grey]

I have foreknowledge that if I cut an artery in my finger, it will bleed. Does that make my artery more likely to bleed, than an uninformed child's finger? (i.e., more than 100% likely)
No.
My knowing what will happen does not cause the bleeding.
Does my foreknowledge force the outcome? Not unless you are soplipsistic, would you think so.

 

[okinrus]

Raith is correct.
Your objection is to the premise, as he specified.

I guess you're right. Most of the premises, though, are unstated.

I don't remember seeing anyone argue what you say people argue in the opening post. I would reject the argument if they had.

You mean the quotation. it's mine but what's typically used.

Rationally, you can't know... so anything else is faith.

While we wouldn't know by rational process, we could simply know. God could embed this knowledge into our brain cells. Who knows?

 

[Raithere]

Having this full and complete knowledge god may predict future events with 100% accuracy, and freewill still exists, as events have not occured.

You still haven't escaped the problem, you've fallen into causal determinism.

http://www.faithnet.org.uk/AS Subjects/Ethics/determinismandfreewill.htm
http://falcon.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/freedom.htm

And just to get your brain to explode here is an expansion on the omniscience vs free will argument, even if you just skim it you'll get a good idea of the complexity of the problem.
(Just bang your head on your monitor when you're done reading, it works for me )

Obviously I take issue with some aspects of his position (I find that he has not properly addresses epistemology and causative issues from a temporal modality).
But I thought I'd be fair and present a source for soft determinism.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/foreknow.htm#section4

A simple analgoy I can think of would be, if we conducted a simple physical experiment - an experiment in which we fully understood all the parameters and all the substances involved. We could with 100% accuracy predict the result (this does not mean the result has already occured).

If this is how human behavior works there is no free will, whether God exists or not, our actions are merely the result of causative effects.

~Raithere

 

[Raithere]

I have foreknowledge that if I cut an artery in my finger, it will bleed. Does that make my artery more likely to bleed, than an uninformed child's finger? (i.e., more than 100% likely)
No.
My knowing what will happen does not cause the bleeding.
Does my foreknowledge force the outcome? Not unless you are soplipsistic, would you think so.

But you don't have foreknowledge, you merely have a prediction. The unstated assumption in your prediction is that certain factors must remain constant.

For instance, what if the moment you cut your finger someone dumped a beaker of liquid nitrogen on your hand? Your hand would freeze and there would be no bleeding. Improbable as the scenario is it is not impossible and if it is not impossible your prediction is not 100%.

One may have extremely accurate abilities of prediction but they don't become facts until the situation actually occurs. This is one of the issues that the article I referenced in my last post ignores.

~Raithere

 

[cole grey]

But you don't have foreknowledge, you merely have a prediction. The unstated assumption in your prediction is that certain factors must remain constant.

For instance, what if the moment you cut your finger someone dumped a beaker of liquid nitrogen on your hand? Your hand would freeze and there would be no bleeding. Improbable as the scenario is it is not impossible and if it is not impossible your prediction is not 100%.

Not possible. I make my prediction 1 second before cutting my finger, and I am alone in the room without my liquid nitrogen. I know what will happen IF I cut my artery.
Let's say the universe ends instantly in a flash of light, then I won't have cut my finger, and that has no relation to my argument. If I know the universe won't end, and nobody has any nitrogen around, that has no effect on the result. Knowing that the universe is going to end, has no effect on what would have happened IF i cut my artery.
My argument is that prior knowledge of an effect related to a specific cause has no effect on that cause. And so on and so on, back to as far back as you want to go.
If you won't apply the word "knowledge" to my knowledge of certain effects following from certain causes, you may use any term you wish, but then I think you will have to define the exact function of God's omniscience, and then your argument will apply only to your definition of how it works, which is an uninformed guess at best.

Why can't "omniscience" be a completely accurate predictive power based on all factors? Because it doesn't fit YOUR definition of the word "knowledge"?

There is no more reason to call the action an effect of the knowledge than there is to call the knowledge an effect of the action.

KEY POINT- If you answer, "time runs forward, in a cause and effect manner, as we see based on processes of energy and chemistry", where is the molecular or chemical connection between the knowledge and the action?

 

[wesmorris]

I guess you're right. Most of the premises, though, are unstated.

Up until the IF part was premise.

You mean the quotation. it's mine but what's typically used.

I've discussed with this with you at great length in the past and don't recall employing that argument. I've seen others do the same, so it's not exactly typical here.

While we wouldn't know by rational process, we could simply know. God could embed this knowledge into our brain cells. Who knows?

How do you know it wasn't the evil aliens vying for control of your brain?

*shrug*

Presuming that god planted the knowledge in your head that you shoudl believe in god is assigning a random cause.

Please note that I do not assert that it was not god. I assert that the answer is unknowable from a rational basis. I hypothesize based upon that assertion that if there were a god, it purposefully rendered itself irrelevent.

 

[okinrus]

How do you know it wasn't the evil aliens vying for control of your brain?

OK, but if God was able to directly give us knowledge, then our knowledge would be unquestionable. We'd simply know he's God because this knowledge has been imprinted within our very selves. Nothing could change that. We could find alternatives, aliens whatever, but we'd still know that these alternatives, while rational, are false.

Presuming that god planted the knowledge in your head that you shoudl believe in god is assigning a random cause.

True, but it's not so important that God planted the knowledge but that we unquestionablly know this knowledge.

Please note that I do not assert that it was not god. I assert that the answer is unknowable from a rational basis. I hypothesize based upon that assertion that if there were a god, it purposefully rendered itself irrelevent.

All of knowledge then is unknowable because, from a purely rational bases, all rational conclusions require premises.

 

[Ebed]

no it's not an assumption, it does say god is a jealous god in the bible, that means it has a ego and thought processes like us and would be as offended as us if he were unloved.see above replythere you even credit it with an ego other religions have simular things written of there god or gods, giving egos to all of them.

I have something that may help. If you want to argue that God is jealous then here. In the original text (hebrew) Jealous means passionate God. Take Care!
Seek Elohim
Peace
Ebed El Olam

 

[wesmorris]

OK, but if God was able to directly give us knowledge, then our knowledge would be unquestionable.

Which is where I suppose we have to agree to disagree. To me, all knowledge is tentative given the whole passage of time thing. Sure you can say how things seem to be, but you can only predict how they will be in terms of probability - as Raithere pointed out clearly.

We'd simply know he's God because this knowledge has been imprinted within our very selves.

I don't see how this is different than your original assertion. My objection stands, but obviously you disagree. So be it.

All of knowledge then is unknowable because, from a purely rational bases, all rational conclusions require premises.

I disagree. All of knowledge is then tentative, based on the validity of your analysis and presumption.

 

[Raithere]

Not possible. I make my prediction 1 second before cutting my finger, and I am alone in the room without my liquid nitrogen. I know what will happen IF I cut my artery.

Again, this is not knowledge. This is a prediction. Specifically, it is a prediction based upon your knowledge of past events. But this does not mean that you know what the future will entail. You are only making a prediction based upon past experience and the assumption that the future will be very much the same. If you'd like to ignore the point, so be it, but don't then try to tell me that you're presenting a logical argument because you're not.

So you've locked yourself in a room with a razor blade and no liquid nitrogen... and at the very moment you cut your finger a meteor lands on your house, instantly vaporizing your entire body except for your cut finger, which lies in the crater not bleeding.

Knowledge is a difficult thing. Even a cursory examination of epistemology underlines just how convoluted and complex the issue is even for directly and immediately observed phenomena.

The point is that no matter how unlikely there remains a possibility that your prediction will not come to pass. This is the only space in which free will can operate. Given certain situational and psychological conditions human behavior can be predicted to a greater or lesser extent. But if this prediction is absolute, if it is indeed knowledge, then there is no room for free will. There is no availability of choice except in the imagination and free will become naught but illusion... wishful thinking.

My argument is that prior knowledge of an effect related to a specific cause has no effect on that cause.

Where did I say that knowledge is causative?

I think you will have to define the exact function of God's omniscience

Not my job, I don't believe in God and I don't believe in omniscience. If you'd like to present an alternative definition and argue your position that's fine but what you've presented thus far simply does not pan out.

Why can't "omniscience" be a completely accurate predictive power based on all factors?

It can be. But then there's no such thing as free will.

~Raithere

 

[okinrus]

Which is where I suppose we have to agree to disagree. To me, all knowledge is tentative given the whole passage of time thing.

Well, first, that's possible but most of these arguments start out by assuming God exists. He can do practically anything. And knowing everything absolutely, he could give any such knowledge to a person. Second, I don't think human beings directly process tentative knowledge. Instead, they process knowledge about the tentative circumstances, basically the knowledge that something is tentative.

Another point in this direction is that we know we exist. Rationally, we don't know we exist, but we do have this knowledge. Otherwise, we'd have no basis for saying we don't or do have knowledge; we simply wouldn't exist.

 

[wesmorris]

okinrus,

which is the lesser of the two assumptions?

I exist?

or

all the stuff you said about god?

when a hueristic approach to problem solving is the only available method, the lesser assumption is preferable if you're looking for a real solution. basically, your assumption forgoes the analysis all together. I will say that as long as you're satisfied with the validity of the analysis, your solution is the most efficient.

i don't need god to assume i exist.

the idea of god does need me to assume it exists.

 

[okinrus]

which is the lesser of the two assumptions?
I exist?
or
all the stuff you said about god?

Intuitively, God's attributes seem like more of an assumption--not because his attributes are somehow unlikely but because we believe in other assumptions. We believe that those who speak and write exist, while those who don't do so openly might not exist. But this assumption cannot be rationally proven. After all we could assume those who speak and write don't exist, and for those who speak and write, we only see an illusion. More complex is this view but no more unlikely than any other view, which goes back to what you said about heuristic. For heuristical purposes, choosing the simplist view and then trying to disprove it is best. But this simplistic view is nore more likely than any other. Scientists have put forth theories such as Newton's theory of gravity, decomposable atoms, etc. And, while these theories helped them discover new theories, they were no more correct than the more complex alternatives.

 

[cole grey]

Where did I say that knowledge is causative?

I think you say it when you say this-

It can be. But then there's no such thing as free will.

in response to this -

why can't omniscience be a completely accurate predictive power...

You are saying that God knowing something before it happens forces that thing to happen.

And I still say, where is the link? How can God's knowledge interact with the universe and force an event to occur? I just want you to tell me by what mechanism a "mental" image, such as a thought, could affect a physical universe.

When God created the universe (as supposed by some), God did not just think it into existence. Supposedly, God had to speak it into existence, i.e. act upon the physical plane, not just think about it.

P.S. about prediction - I predict that when I smash a lightbulb, tear it into tiny pieces, and separate those pieces, it will no longer light up. My (accurate), prediction doesn't affect the lightbulb in any way.