Posted by alexandra_k on September 15, 2005, at 19:20:14
In reply to Re: Adam Eve gained knowledge, but it turned » alexandra_k, posted by Gabbix2 on September 15, 2005, at 18:09:00
I don't rely on a connection between forseeing the future and controlling the future.
If determinism is true (the thesis that the state of the universe at one instant determines the state of the universe at the next instant) then god could have knowledge of the state of the universe at one instant in time and knowledge of the deterministic laws and from there he could predict what will happen indefinately into the future with 100% accuracy...
This doesn't imply that god causes anything at all to happen (though it doesn't rule out that possibility either).
> Yes but that's according to philosophers, which isn't what I'm discussing. Neither am I discussing what knowledge is to the Kabbalah, or the Bahai
okay... so then what is knowledge? when what we are considering is gods knowledge of the future and what implications that has for free will then i suppose it would help to be clear on precisely what we mean by 'gods knowledge'.
> my point is that one can know something is going to happen without controlling it or having planned it themselves.
I agree 100%
It is possible that an infinite being could grasp the state of the universe and the laws of nature and use that information to predict the future with 100% accuracy. That doesn't imply anything at all about the ability of that being to cause changes to the state of the world or cause the laws of physics to be different from what they are. But it also doesn't rule that out either (though we may want to rule that out on other grounds)
> Tamar and I see no necessary connection between foreseeing and controlling but to you they are intertwined.I don't see a connection there either. I think we agree on that point. I'm not trying to say that god controls everything we do. I'm just trying to say that:
P1) IF god knows what is going to happen THEN there must be facts about what will and will not happen. (Gods knowledge of the future must be based on knowledge of those facts).
P2) IF there are facts about what will and will not happen THEN we cannot act differently from the way those facts describe us acting.
P3) IF we cannot act differently from the way those facts describe us as acting THEN we cannot do otherwise from what the facts dictate we will do.
P4) IF acting differently from the way those facts describe us as acting has to be an option in order for us to have free will THEN we do not have free will.
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C) IF god knows what is going to happen THEN we cannot have free willThere are a lot of concepts you can play with to try and get around this problem...
1) You could limit gods foreknowledge
2) You could say that being able to do otherwise is not required for free will
3) You could say 'but determinism is false anyway!!!' and appeal to quantum indeterminacies...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:553832
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050909/msgs/555382.html