Argument From Free Will

[Deleted member 619]

I realise my answers are clumsy. I had never really given this much thought before so trying to justify every sense is not coming to me in a flash, so to speak.

That's why we have discourse, so that we can explore these ideas together. One of the beautiful things about doing it this way is that I will almost certainly spot things you haven't, and you'll always spot things I haven't.

The above was really about decision making rather than knowledge per se. However, I have used a definition of omniscience which goes beyond what we call knowledge.

In that case, you're stretching it well beyond its remit, which is always going to be problematic. Omniscience is always and only about knowledge.

Effectively I have created an entity overseeing a continuum within which everything within is "known". There's no beginning nor end because the entity is beyond those concepts. (and this is only what I am imagining so as to put my head in the space of deists)

I see. Thing is, aside from the fact that omniscience is logically impossible, omniscience is only ever about what an entity knows. I don't have to, for example, control or even own a car to know all that there is to know about cars.

 

[red]

I realise my answers are clumsy. I had never really given this much thought before so trying to justify every sense is not coming to me in a flash, so to speak.
The above was really about decision making rather than knowledge per se. However, I have used a definition of omniscience which goes beyond what we call knowledge. Effectively I have created an entity overseeing a continuum within which everything within is "known". There's no beginning nor end because the entity is beyond those concepts. (and this is only what I am imagining so as to put my head in the space of deists)

None of the Deists that I know claim the Creator, if one exists, is omniscience.

I have no idea what deists claim, but there are views of an entity which is beyond nature and has powers which transcend ours. One could call them anything, I chose "deist" as a best fit for the thread.

 

[tuxbox]

I have no idea what deists claim, but there are views of an entity which is beyond nature and has powers which transcend ours. One could call them anything, I chose "deist" as a best fit for the thread.

Understood and I guess using the Deistic God/Creator for an example makes more sense considering the God of the Bible is not omniscient, according to the Bible.

 

[tuxbox]

Either my browser is messed up or red's last post disappeared?

 

[Deleted member 619]

It wasn't your browser. I hit 'quote' and got a message saying the post didn't exist.

 

[tuxbox]

Weird!

 

[red]

I see. Thing is, aside from the fact that omniscience is logically impossible, omniscience is only ever about what an entity knows. I don't have to, for example, control or even own a car to know all that there is to know about cars.

I defined how I was using "omniscient" so as to be transparent.
Commonly to "know everything" has a broader remit than a technical definition of knowledge, and I hoped that my sense of use of "omniscience" would be seen in the context I set out. Thus, an omniscient entity would know there was going to be a car before there was one, and would know its destination even if the driver thought s/he decided on one different!
I agree that omniscience is logically impossible but deists are not always constrained by logic that I am aware, so I have tried to present what they would to support the original postings in this thread - perhaps not to well, and apologies.
I thought about it this way to stop my brain hurting>>> take any slice of our universe and roll it back a day and forward a day. The all knowing entity could provide chapter and verse on the entirety of happenings over the period in question. Expand that slice in every direction without exception and there would be nothing the entity did not know.
If that were the case, then free will might seem illusory for us.

 

[Deleted member 619]

I defined how I was using "omniscient" so as to be transparent.
Commonly to "know everything" has a broader remit than a technical definition of knowledge,

Umm, not as far as I know. To know everything is exactly the remit of a technical definition of omniscience.

and I hoped that my sense of use of "omniscience" would be seen in the context I set out. Thus, an omniscient entity would know there was going to be a car before there was one, and would know its destination even if the driver thought s/he decided on one different!
I agree that omniscience is logically impossible but deists are not always constrained by logic that I am aware, so I have tried to present what they would to support the original postings in this thread - perhaps not to well, and apologies.
I thought about it this way to stop my brain hurting>>> take any slice of our universe and roll it back a day and forward a day. The all knowing entity could provide chapter and verse on the entirety of happenings over the period in question. Expand that slice in every direction without exception and there would be nothing the entity did not know.
If that were the case, then free will might seem illusory for us.

I agree with most of that, but I'm still not seeing how you get from there to constraints on omniscience to a single entity.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Weird!

I just worked out that you can delete your own post as long as it hasn't been replied to. There's a little button next to 'report post' that I wasn't even aware of (most boards don't allow deletion of posts at all).

 

[red]

The above was really about decision making rather than knowledge per se. However, I have used a definition of omniscience which goes beyond what we call knowledge.

In that case, you're stretching it well beyond its remit, which is always going to be problematic. Omniscience is always and only about knowledge.

Dave B's original post does not make sense with a definition of omniscience based on a restrictive definition of "knowledge".
So yes, I "stretched" it.
Unless some omniscient entity was playing with my brain - of which I was unaware - the foregoing demonstrates I have exercised my free will.
I have to wonder what religious folk "feel" in case I am missing out.

 

[red]

I agree with most of that, but I'm still not seeing how you get from there to constraints on omniscience to a single entity.

Perhaps I have erred definitionally. If someone knows less than "everything" by one item, maybe they can still be omniscient?

 

[red]

I defined how I was using "omniscient" so as to be transparent.
Commonly to "know everything" has a broader remit than a technical definition of knowledge,

Umm, not as far as I know. To know everything is exactly the remit of a technical definition of omniscience.

Are you saying that is equal to "knowing" when I am going to die?

 

[red]

Weird!

I just worked out that you can delete your own post as long as it hasn't been replied to. There's a little button next to 'report post' that I wasn't even aware of (most boards don't allow deletion of posts at all).

I did too - and then had to re-write the reply. I hope it made more sense. I am trying to think as though I believed in a creator, and it has truly turned my brain into mush.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Dave B's original post does not make sense with a definition of omniscience based on a restrictive definition of "knowledge".

There's nothing restrictive about the definition I'm employing, and indeed it seems to gel well with how you're using it. Omniscience is simply 'all knowledge', where knowledge is 'awareness of facts'.

Unless some omniscient entity was playing with my brain - of which I was unaware - the foregoing demonstrates I have exercised my free will.

The foregoing doesn't demonstrate anything of the sort, even in the absence of such an entity. You could be living in an entirely deterministic universe (you aren't, as can readily be demonstrated) and the forgoing demonstration would be unchanged. All you've demonstrated is that you seem to have free will, but that could be entirely illusory and you'd never be any the wiser.

If any omniscient entity did exist, then the universe would be deterministic, and any choice you thought you had would be merely the appearance of choice, not the actuality of it.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Perhaps I have erred definitionally. If someone knows less than "everything" by one item, maybe they can still be omniscient?

Still not getting how you're getting omniscience only allowed to a single entity, regardless of any answer to that question. I see nothing beyond the impossibility of omniscience that restricts omniscience to only being allowed in one entity. If one entity can know everything, why couldn't two know everything?

 

[Deleted member 619]

Are you saying that is equal to "knowing" when I am going to die?

I'm saying that knowing when you're going to die would be one of the things an omniscient entity would know. I'm not altogether sure that you're not confusing yourself here.

 

[tuxbox]

I did too - and then had to re-write the reply. I hope it made more sense. I am trying to think as though I believed in a creator, and it has truly turned my brain into mush.

Lmao

 

[red]

Are you saying that is equal to "knowing" when I am going to die?

I'm saying that knowing when you're going to die would be one of the things an omniscient entity would know. I'm not altogether sure that you're not confusing yourself here.

Probably confused by what I "thought" you meant.
Knowing when I am going to die is not a fact - it is yet to happen.
We seem to agree - then omniscient.

 

[red]

Perhaps I have erred definitionally. If someone knows less than "everything" by one item, maybe they can still be omniscient?

Still not getting how you're getting omniscience only allowed to a single entity, regardless of any answer to that question. I see nothing beyond the impossibility of omniscience that restricts omniscience to only being allowed in one entity. If one entity can know everything, why couldn't two know everything?

I am missing something!
Everything is the totality. Less than that is not.
Because I subsumed the power to create what becomes knowable into omniscience, I now need to separate that "power" to get to a single omniscient entity (assuming the logically impossible). It is true that 2 entities might be able to "know" everything, but if each entity was capable of the power to change what might be known, then neither could be omnipotent unless it "knew" what the other was going to do.

 

[red]

I did too - and then had to re-write the reply. I hope it made more sense. I am trying to think as though I believed in a creator, and it has truly turned my brain into mush.

Lmao

I feel like a masochist, letting hackenslash tie me up before doing a Joan of Arc on me.