Free Will or Omniscience? (Sorry if i misspelled omniscience)

[QuantumT]

Fine, mavericxk, if you really want to assume that determinism is true, then we should move on to soft determinism. Basically, we redefine "free will" as "the ability to make our own choice."

In a robot example, we develop a robot that has a choice to push a red button or not. When we make it, we know it'll push the red button. We could change the way it's built so it doesn't push the red button, but why would we do that? We make every robot with the ability to choose for itself. After all, we're omnipotent, we can do that, right?

Now, assume you make the same robot, but this time you don't know if it'll push the button. It's the same robot, so it pushes the button. To emphasize, the robot is no different. The question I'm asking you is, "How does our knowledge of the future affect the way the robot was built, aka its capacity for choice."

Whether or not the robot has free will or not in the second example is debatable. However, in the first example (ie with omniscience), the robot has no more free will than a ball I place at the top of a ramp.

[Pineapple]

The thing is, it's the same ball on the same ramp for the second example. The ball hasn't changed. The ramp hasn't changed. Gravity hasn't changed. What's different?

[QuantumT]

The thing is, it's the same ball on the same ramp for the second example. The ball hasn't changed. The ramp hasn't changed. Gravity hasn't changed. What's different?

My point is that the ball has no free will, because its path has already been chosen for it.

Also it's a ball.

[maverixk]

Also it's a ball.

Haha.

Soo, patchx94, I realize that omniscience has no effect on free will, and that if you define free will as the ability to make a choice then yes, we have free will. So my opening statement on this thread is incorrect. But, you still have yet to point out a situation where a specific event can result in multiple outcomes.

[Pineapple]

We can't prove that a specific event can't result in multiple outcomes. It's like religion, we don't know who to push the burden of proof to. I've decided to take the burden of proof and assume that there can only be one outcome from a specific event. (Assume determinism.) Then I skew my position to determinism by doing what the people who believe in "soft determinism" do: redefine "free will" as "something that's effectively free will for all intents and purposes."

[maverixk]

Good point patchx94...well, unless you wish to add something further I don't see what I can add to your statement there.

[QuantumT]

We can't prove that a specific event can't result in multiple outcomes. It's like religion, we don't know who to push the burden of proof to. I've decided to take the burden of proof and assume that there can only be one outcome from a specific event. (Assume determinism.) Then I skew my position to determinism by doing what the people who believe in "soft determinism" do: redefine "free will" as "something that's effectively free will for all intents and purposes."

For religion, it's quite obvious that the burden of proof is on religion.

Also, quantum mechanics scoffs at determinism.

[Pineapple]

Well, for one I can argue "There can be more than one outcome. Example: In this laboratory experiment about quarks in particle physics, they tried to keep all the variables the same but the outcome keeps changing." We've tried this before, but you guys just reply with "Obviously, they didn't do a good job of keeping all the variables the same."

You guys can attack me by saying that my "fake" free will has nothing to do with "true" free will, and say that I'm wrong if "a specific event can only have one outcome."

[Chromatophore]

Here is another analogy.

A writer is writing a novel.

The writer could decide all of the plot points first.  Then his character would lack free will because he would be forced to make desicion x in chapter y in order for the plot to work out the way the writer decided.

Or the writer could flesh out details of the character, come up with an image of how the character would react in various situations.  In this case the character can take on a life of his own, begin to make decisions independent of the writer, thereby gaining free will.

But seeing as every action that the character takes is due to the whims the the writer, would you really argue the character has free will?

Again, see my robot analogy.

It sounds to me like you are already assuming that the character has no free will or that the author has pre-articulated the plot ("every action") in order for you to conclude that "every action that the character takes is due to the whims of the writer".

I believe this is just a semantical argument and that if you define omniscience in a certain way and free will in a certain way you can reduce humanity down to just robots, but i don't see why you would want to do that when you can define them differently or not define them at all.

[QuantumT]

It sounds to me like you are already assuming that the character has no free will or that the author has pre-articulated the plot ("every action") in order for you to conclude that "every action that the character takes is due to the whims of the writer".

Seeing as the entire extent of the character's existence is formed entirely by which words the author chooses to put down, it seems like the character has no free will by definition.

I believe this is just a semantical argument and that if you define omniscience in a certain way and free will in a certain way you can reduce humanity down to just robots, but i don't see why you would want to do that when you can define them differently or not define them at all.

In case my position wasn't clear, I'm not arguing against free will. I'm arguing that free will and an OO god are fundamentally exclusive ideas.

[BluePriest]

Sorry, I didnt want to revisit this topic, but I realized that I just had to post in it. And guess what. Me posting this is causing you to post in it as well.

[Chromatophore]

Seeing as the entire extent of the character's existence is formed entirely by which words the author chooses to put down

I don't see it this way.