Originally posted by LemonJelloHi LJ,
Sorry I have not responded in a while, since I have been busy outside of RHP.
I took another look at Plantinga's arguments concerning condition (3). His condition (3) has the form of necessity operating on a counterfactual claim, so it is a bit of a strange animal. Typically, to first order, a counterfactual claim itself such as D –c> ~P is assessed ...[text shortened]... ction is factually correct. I do not see any obvious problems for Plantinga's formulation here.
don't worry about not responding quickly, real life takes precedence - in any case it gave me a chance to work out what was wrong with my counterexamples for myself. I'd need something that shouldn't have accidental necessity, but doesn't fail the strictly about the past test - which is difficult to construct.
What made me think Plantinga had the truth values of propositions about the future being indeterminate was the bit I've highlighted in bold face in (42):
(42) p is accidentally necessary at t if and only if p is true at t and it is not possible both that p is true at t and that there exists an agent S and an action A such that (1) A is basic for S, (2) S has the power at t or later to perform A, and (3) necessarily if S were to perform A at t or later, then p would have been false.Which seemed to imply that p wasn't true at some other time t'. He used the phrase "God believed Paul will do ..." as opposed to "God knew Paul will do ..." several times and talked about atemporalists, for example this sentence on page 259 (25th page of the pdf):
Permit me a couple of comments on this definition. First, although it involves the idea of a proposition's being true at a time, it is easily revised (as are (42) and (44) below) so as to accommodate our atemporalist friends.I took this to mean that he felt that the truth values of propositions depend on when they are made. Although, I agree that it's hard to reconcile that with the notion of infallible prescience he's defending.
I just want to clarify part of your discussion. I'm working on the assumption that:
Q = Paul mows his lawn.
R = God foreknows this
V = ants do not move in
and
a) Q -c> R
b) R -c> V
c) Q -c> V
And that you are saying that in this case Plantinga's argument works because the omniscient knowledge condition □(Q <-> R) basically guarantees that any R world will be a Q world.
I think the difficulty with Plantinga's argument, or at least its justification, is that he wants to show that accidental necessity is consistent with both an interventionist omniscient being and free will present, so for him the presence of such a being and free will amount to axioms. So its enough for him to find a definition of accidental necessity that is consistent with this. I agree that the formula does what he wants it to, it's just not clear to me that this is how accidental necessity should be defined.
I wonder if anyone ever replied to this paper?
Originally posted by DeepThought
Hi LJ,
don't worry about not responding quickly, real life takes precedence - in any case it gave me a chance to work out what was wrong with my counterexamples for myself. I'd need something that shouldn't have accidental necessity, but doesn't fail the strictly about the past test - which is difficult to construct.
What made me think Plantinga had ...[text shortened]... s how accidental necessity should be defined.
I wonder if anyone ever replied to this paper?
I took this to mean that he felt that the truth values of propositions depend on when they are made.
Without any loss in generality, I think these formulations can be written such that they are consistent with either view (i.e., consistent with either acceptance or rejection of the idea that it makes sense to talk about a proposition being true at a particular time) . In the paper, Plantinga provides some discussion here and there regarding how something like (42) can be rewritten as such. So, the reference to a particular time t is not meant to affirm the idea that a proposition is true at a particular time, since it is not irreducible to the formulation that truth is a time-specific property of propositions; rather, it is meant to reflect the idea that 'accidental necessity' is a time-specific property of true, contingent propositions. Consider, for example, the following scenario (time T0 is prior to times T1 is prior to time T2). Suppose God foreknows that S will perform A at time T2. Then the proposition 'God foreknows that S will perform A at time T2' is true. It's essentially irrelevant to the discussion whether or not one is of the camp that thinks it would make sense to say that the proposition 'God foreknows that S will perform A at T2' is true at T0, since the Edwardsian argument will have the same thrust if one just makes the observation that, say, the sentence "God foreknows that S will perform A at time T2" , serving to express the aforementioned proposition, expresses a truth at T0. But, according to Plantinga's formulation, the accidental necessity of this will be a function of time. For instance, on his formulation, that the sentence "God foreknows that S will perform A at time T2" expressed a truth at T0 is not accidentally necessary for times T1 but presumably is accidentally necessary for times after T2. So, regardless of whether the truth of the proposition that this sentence serves to express is time-specific, the accidental necessity of the relevant contingent fact about the past is time-specific. Presumably, in order to be successful in reconciling foreknowledge and freedom, Plantinga just needs to show that the necessity of the past does not hold for some specific times (say, those leading up to a free action).
At any rate, the question of whether or not future propositions have a truth value is somewhat different than the question of whether or not it makes sense to say a proposition is true at a particular time. Regardless of one's view on the latter question, this whole discussion basically implicitly assumes the former, since this is primarily a discussion about the prospects of reconciling divine foreknowledge with libertarian freedom.
I just want to clarify part of your discussion. I'm working on the assumption that:
Q = Paul mows his lawn.
R = God foreknows this
V = ants do not move in
and
a) Q -c> R
b) R -c> V
c) Q -c> V
And that you are saying that in this case Plantinga's argument works because the omniscient knowledge condition □(Q <-> R) basically guarantees that any R world will be a Q world.
Yeah, more or less. If you look at the argument (a)-(c) in isolation, it looks like a pretty bad argument, since it has an invalid form and since (b) is implausible. However, if you consider his argument holistically, what he is really in a position to argue is more like this:
(i)Necessarily (Q <–c–> R)
(ii)Possibly (R –c> V)
Therefore:
(iii)Possibly (Q –c> V).
Now, this argument seems okay to me in context.
I think the difficulty with Plantinga's argument, or at least its justification, is that he wants to show that accidental necessity is consistent with both an interventionist omniscient being and free will present, so for him the presence of such a being and free will amount to axioms. So its enough for him to find a definition of accidental necessity that is consistent with this. I agree that the formula does what he wants it to, it's just not clear to me that this is how accidental necessity should be defined.
Agreed, the Ockhamite definition of accidental necessity here seems highly contrived, to the point where we have to ask ourselves if this is just ad hoc stipulation. This is definitely concerning. I think what we have to ask ourselves is the following. Let's say that on Plantinga's formulation of 'accidental necessity' we grant that past facts concerning God's foreknowledge are not 'accidentally necessary' , whereas other past facts may well be. Notwithstanding, does this formulation in terms of counterfactual powers really reconcile divine foreknowledge and libertarian freedom? Here is how the online Stanford Encyclopedia Foreknowledge and Free Will essay puts the concern:
It seems to me that it is very difficult to give an account of the necessity of the past that preserves the intuition that the past has a special kind of necessity in virtue of being past, but which has the consequence that God's past beliefs do not have that kind of necessity. The problem is that God's past beliefs seem to be as good a candidate for something that is strictly past as almost anything we can think of, such as an explosion last week. If we have counterfactual power over God's past beliefs, but not the past explosion, that must be because of something special about God's past beliefs that is intuitively plausible apart from the attempt to avoid theological fatalism. If it is not independently plausible, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Ockhamist solution is ad hoc.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/#2.3
Regarding, whether or not there have been responses to Plantinga's paper, the above link should give a starting point, since it specifically lists in passing some post-1986 (when Plantinga wrote his essay) works that are critical of Ockhamism.
Originally posted by LemonJelloI'll give the Stanford encyclopedia article a read. In the meantime I've thought of another possible tack. Plantinga has constructed his ants example so that God only intervenes if Paul mows his garden (call this M). So in worlds that are not M-worlds God does not intervene.I took this to mean that he felt that the truth values of propositions depend on when they are made.
Without any loss in generality, I think these formulations can be written such that they are consistent with either view (i.e., consistent with either acceptance or rejection of the idea that it makes sense to talk about a proposition bei ...[text shortened]... in passing some post-1986 (when Plantinga wrote his essay) works that are critical of Ockhamism.
Suppose we change his example a little and have God guide the ants to Paul's garden. This should be enough to give God caring for the ants accidental necessity (we can have him smite a few anteaters along the way to make sure). So now the question is whether the accidental necessity of God caring for the ants is enough to make M-worlds not A-worlds (A worlds being worlds where the ants move in).
In A-worlds the ants move in, call this set of worlds A
In M-worlds Paul mows his lawn, call this set of worlds M
In C-worlds God cares for the ants, call this set of worlds C
I'm trying to set it up so that as God has guided the ants to Paul's garden they would not have gone there had God not intervened. I'm trying to argue that worlds which aren't C-worlds are also not A-worlds. In non C-worlds they would have moved in elsewhere and not spent such a long time trekking over.
So:
1) A ⊂ C
2) A ∩ M = ∅
3) C ∩ M ≠ ∅
Plantingas argument relies on A ∩ M ≠ ∅, that there are possible worlds where Paul mows his lawn and the ants have moved in. But here I have it set up so that if Paul mows his lawn it's a non-A world and if God does not care about the ants it is also a non-A world. So there should be no possible worlds where Paul mows his lawn that are A-worlds. If God didn't care about the ants they wouldn't have moved into Paul's garden. If necessary we can make it impossible for the ants to make it to Paul's garden without divine intervention to the extent of a miracle. Is this enough to break condition (3)?
I suppose God could just intervene to tie Paul's mower to his bicycle with the garden hose with a knot of gordian complexity to prevent him from mowing, but it seems that God could have done that in the original example anyway.
Originally posted by DeepThought
I'll give the Stanford encyclopedia article a read. In the meantime I've thought of another possible tack. Plantinga has constructed his ants example so that God only intervenes if Paul mows his garden (call this M). So in worlds that are not M-worlds God does not intervene.
Suppose we change his example a little and have God guide the ant ...[text shortened]... vent him from mowing, but it seems that God could have done that in the original example anyway.
Plantinga has constructed his ants example so that God only intervenes if Paul mows his garden (call this M). So in worlds that are not M-worlds God does not intervene.
I doubt this. What Plantinga supposes in his hypothetical is that the ants have moved in; the ant colony is a bit fragile (such that an event like mowing would destroy it) ; and God, for whatever reason, sufficiently intends that the ant colony be preserved. Since such a collection of facts is possible given the facts of the actual world, or vice versa, he can use this to show there is a world accessible from the actual world wherein it is counterfactually true that if Paul would mow this afternoon, then God would have prevented the ants from moving in – i.e., an accessible world for which the nearest M-world is a world wherein God intervenes. However, none of this implies or justifies the idea that God only intervenes in M-worlds. Given the very same collection of hypothetical facts, there should be an accessible world (or worlds) for which there is a relatively nearby non-M-world and yet God intervenes there. Say, a world wherein Paul does not mow (hence not an M-world) but Paul's son mows Paul's yard instead; or say, a world wherein Paul does not mow but instead sprays bug/ant killer chemicals all over his yard; or maybe any number of other examples.
Plantingas argument relies on A ∩ M ≠ ∅, that there are possible worlds where Paul mows his lawn and the ants have moved in. But here I have it set up so that if Paul mows his lawn it's a non-A world and if God does not care about the ants it is also a non-A world. So there should be no possible worlds where Paul mows his lawn that are A-worlds. If God didn't care about the ants they wouldn't have moved into Paul's garden. If necessary we can make it impossible for the ants to make it to Paul's garden without divine intervention to the extent of a miracle. Is this enough to break condition (3)?
No, I doubt it is enough. Condition (3) is asserting, basically, that all possible worlds, accessible from the actual world, are such that the nearest M-world is not an A-world. Yes, this would be satisfied naturally if there are no possible worlds wherein both A and M hold. However, I do not agree that we should think this is the case in your hypothetical. Consider conceptually the distinction between the following two ideas: there are no possible/accessible worlds wherein both A and M hold; versus, there are some possible/accessible worlds such that there are no even remotely nearby worlds wherein both A and M hold. I think the type of hypothetical conditions you are supplying could at best only provide for the latter, but not the former. This is I suppose why Plantinga basically takes (3) to have the form of strict implication and talks about S's performing A at t or later basically itself needing to *entail* the falsity of P. If there is some direct logical inconsistency between M and A, then of course you are justified in saying that there are no possible/accessible worlds wherein both M & A hold. But, if your hypothetical conditions are less than this, at best you are probably just outlining some possible/accessible world very far removed from, or very non-similar to, any worlds wherein both M & A hold. Indeed, it may be very, very far removed from any (M&A)-worlds. That, however, does not suffice to show that (3) holds.
Given Plantinga's argument and assessments, a problematic case for him would be a case where (3) holds and yet there is no entailment between S's performing A and ~P. I do not really see any such cases yet, though.
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Originally posted by DeepThought... Pharoah in Exodus is portrayed as not having free will regarding the release of the Israelites, he is made to be intransigent, but no one seriously regards that as a challenge to free will globally. The potential problem is that even the possibility of backwards in time causation gives the future the same necessity as the past.
I agree that there is no reason to believe that the laws of physics apply outside of the universe. The laws of physics have been determined empirically and we can't do experiments outside of the universe, so there's no experimental authority to make claims about such domains. We do, however, expect logic to be applicable.
If an omniscient entity who ...[text shortened]... at T2 does not have the same necessity of the past at T1 as events chronologically before T1 do.
I wasn't sure if I fully understood this or not, but I've decided go ahead anyway and share my own thoughts on this.
Defining free will only as accomplishing a purpose misses the point of what free will is, because not accomplishing a free will choice does not negate free will as an active force or agency. God hardening pharoahs heart is often the pivotal idea used here to prove interference with free will, but the hardening of his heart is usually understood to mean God did nothing to prevent Pharoah from repeatedly changing his mind. And it didn't take long for me to find confirmation of this idea:
... God did not directly harden Pharaoh's heart (or anyone else's heart for that matter) contrary to their own free choice, but only indirectly, through their own choice. In their excellent book When Critics Ask (©1992 Victor Books), Geisler and Howe say,
“God in His omniscience foreknew exactly how Pharaoh would respond, and He used it to accomplish His purposes. God ordained the means of Pharaoh's free but stubborn action…”
The fact that Pharaoh had so often changed his mind seems to affirm (rather than negate) a continual and ongoing ability to exercise free will. A free will choice can be thwarted, resulting in choosing to do nothing or do something else, but there is no reason to regarded free will (in and of itself) as something that doesn't exist in any of those circumstances.
Not being able to accomplish a purpose does not negate free will, it just means some purpose wasn't accomplished... in other words, negation of purpose isn't the same thing as negation of free will. I can choose to lay down and choose to get back up; I can choose to go over there and then choose to come back. Or I can choose to do nothing. And if I'm prevented from doing anything, then my free will may have been thwarted but it didn't just magically disappear... it can still be regarded as a potential (if not active) force or agency.
Originally posted by lemon limeThe point I was making was just that divine foreknowledge is believed by some to prevent anyone from having free will, however God intervening to curtail the free will of one person for specific reasons at one time would not prevent everyone else from having free will and would not prevent said person from having free will the rest of the time. It's difficult for me to reconcile "I will harden his heart" with the notion that the Pharaoh had complete free will in the matter. Having said that, the article LJ referenced on free will and foreknowledge is interesting. It's got a nice thought experiment on a similar theme:
[b]... Pharoah in Exodus is portrayed as not having free will regarding the release of the Israelites, he is made to be intransigent, but no one seriously regards that as a challenge to free will globally. The potential problem is that even the possibility of backwards in time causation gives the future the same necessity as the past.
I wasn't sure ...[text shortened]... lly disappear... it can still be regarded as a potential (if not active) force or agency.[/b]
Dr. Black, an evil neuroscientist, wants Mr. White killed. He doesn't want to do it himself but knows that Mary also hates Mr. White and intends to kill him. She has exactly one opportunity to do this. To stop her backing out and without her knowledge he inserts a device into her brain that reads her thoughts and if, when she has her chance, she decides not to do it it will activate and force her to, literally changing her mind. He needn't have bothered as she goes ahead anyway. The device never becomes active, it only passively records her thoughts. However, had she decided not to it would have activated and forced her to. So, did she have free will?
Most people say yes, despite the fact that not killing Mr. White was not a live option for her. This is not meant to be a model of divine foreknowledge, for one thing the device would have to force her to make the decision she was going to make anyway, just an indication that what the article describes as the "Principle of Alternative Possibilities" isn't automatically a good guide in discussions about free will.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge
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Originally posted by DeepThoughtIt's difficult for me to reconcile "I will harden his heart" with the notion that the Pharaoh had complete free will in the matter.
The point I was making was just that divine foreknowledge is believed by some to prevent anyone from having free will, however God intervening to curtail the free will of one person for specific reasons at one time would not prevent everyone else from having free will and would not prevent said person from having free will the rest of the time. It's dif ...[text shortened]... ide in discussions about free will.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge
It's only hard to reconcile at face value, because what that statement actually means (or is meant to convey) is that God did nothing to prevent his heart from hardening. He did plenty to convince pharoah to release them, but that was the extent of his influence. If it was Gods purpose for Israel to go free, and he was willing to tinker with or negate anyones free will, then he could have negated pharoahs free will and even caused him to say, "You know what, I'm tired of having slaves and servants always hanging around to do my bidding and serve my every whim. I'm bored with this and want to try something new for a change. So go right ahead Moses, feel free to take these low life eyesores off my hands and move them somewhere else."
Seriously though, this apparent discrepancy may simply represent the difficulty in translating ideas from one language into another. Some ideas and conventions of speech may themselves be extremely difficult, and not translate well (or at all) into English. In some instances subtleties of meaning are either not known or understood, or too complex to translate into single words or even small handfuls of words... I run across this problem often when looking at footnotes and references attempting to give a more precise meaning.
Originally posted by lemon limePace the point about Pharaoh, I slightly misrepresented the set up with Dr. Black's diabolical device. It's designed to detect her start to have doubts, so that she can't even get as far as changing her mind. It's a subtle point, but it prevents her having free will as far as not killing mr. White is concerned, she can't even properly entertain doubts. It's not coercion in the normal sense of wanting to do otherwise but being forced to, she simply cannot think of doing otherwise. But as she never does entertain doubts and the device never operates in active mode she behaves identically to the way she would have had she had complete free will in the matter.
[b]It's difficult for me to reconcile "I will harden his heart" with the notion that the Pharaoh had complete free will in the matter.
It's only hard to reconcile at face value, because what that statement actually means (or is meant to convey) is that God did nothing to prevent his heart from hardening. He did plenty to convince phar ...[text shortened]... roblem often when looking at footnotes and references attempting to give a more precise meaning.[/b]
Originally posted by DeepThoughtI must have overlooked or skipped past the Dr Black thing, because I don't recall reading that part. I have trouble with complicated ideas like this (I can't even get a clear handle on your short explanation of it) and sometimes I'll avoid looking at them altogether. So I take it Mr. White was a dead duck no matter what, and won't be returning to be in the next episode of It Had to Happen... ?
Pace the point about Pharaoh, I slightly misrepresented the set up with Dr. Black's diabolical device. It's designed to detect her start to have doubts, so that she can't even get as far as changing her mind. It's a subtle point, but it prevents her having free will as far as not killing mr. White is concerned, she can't even properly entertain doubts. ...[text shortened]... she behaves identically to the way she would have had she had complete free will in the matter.
What does "Pace" the point about Pharaoh mean"?
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Originally posted by DeepThoughtWhoops, I didn't realize the Dr Black thing appeared in the same post. I stopped short of it to address the Pharaoh thing, and didn't get back to the rest of your message. But no more time tonight, so tomorrow is another day.... 😴
The point I was making was just that divine foreknowledge is believed by some to prevent anyone from having free will, however God intervening to curtail the free will of one person for specific reasons at one time would not prevent everyone else from having free will and would not prevent said person from having free will the rest of the time. It's dif ...[text shortened]... ide in discussions about free will.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge
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Originally posted by RJHindsSome ideas don't easily lend themselves to being reduced to formulations. I've focused my attention on the 'word' explanations, and have noticed there doesn't seem to be much distinction made between free will and actions resulting from free will. I can see the necessity of ignoring this distinction when devising a logical argument, but attempting to blend the physical with spiritual as though they are the same is imo a mistake. It's unworkable in the sense that getting almost any idea to neatly fit in with a formulation necessarily requires tinkering with definitions.
Usng letters or numbers or weird symbols does not make logic more understandable in my opinion. 😏
By that I mean, if there is no clear path (or link) to be found between prescient knowledge and free will, then attempting to link the two can only work if we tinker with their definitions.
It's interesting to note that the title of this thread doesn't actually ask or suggest if there is a link or not, but rather seeks to clarify how we (non-theists) infer the theists intent with regard to free-will/omniscience. The word 'intent' might suggest we have some purpose in mind, rather than inferring our 'understanding of' [free-will/omniscience]. So I'm wondering if perhaps there was some purpose behind saying "intent wrt" rather than "understanding of"... or was it simply an unfortunate choice of words.
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Originally posted by lemon limeI mentioned as a footnote that the title was crap, but essentially I was asking, if we have the following 2 statements about God
Some ideas don't easily lend themselves to being reduced to formulations. I've focused my attention on the 'word' explanations, and have noticed there doesn't seem to be much distinction made between free will and actions resulting from free will. I can see the necessity of ignoring this distinction when devising a logical argument, but attempting to blen ...[text shortened]... "intent wrt" rather than "understanding of"... or was it simply an unfortunate choice of words.
1) Necessarily, God knows P (precluding ¬P)
2) Necessarily, if P then God knows P.
Which of these is the typical theist referring to when they make informal omniscience claims about their god.
I asked it because in a different thread, I was pulled up on the fact that free-will/omniscience isn't a logical problem under (2), after making the statement that free will is incompatible with omniscience (or words to that effect) to some other theist (I forget the name) who seemed to be making statements of type (1).
"Intent" was not meant in the cynical sense you're toying with in the final paragraph ... it was just crap wording.
Originally posted by lemon limeAll ideas lend themselves to a symbolic formulation. If you can say it in words you can write it symbolically. The advantage with a symbolic formulation is that non-obvious consequences can be derived using the rules of the formal language. Of course, the catch is that the formal language used has to be appropriate to the problem and the statement has to be formulated correctly in the first place. There's the potential for the same mistake as when a mathematician correctly solves the wrong equation. I find it helpful to turn the arguments into symbols as it helps me to see the overall logical structure.
Some ideas don't easily lend themselves to being reduced to formulations. I've focused my attention on the 'word' explanations, and have noticed there doesn't seem to be much distinction made between free will and actions resulting from free will. I can see the necessity of ignoring this distinction when devising a logical argument, but attempting to blen ...[text shortened]... "intent wrt" rather than "understanding of"... or was it simply an unfortunate choice of words.
In our previous discussions we were working on the assumption that free will under some action necessarily implied that there was the possibility of not taking the action. Suppose P is the proposition that agent S takes some action A. Then ¬□P means not (¬.) necessarily (□) proposition P. We were assuming that S has free will entailed ¬□P. This is called the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, which basically states that if there are no alternative possibilities then there is no free will. If there is no contradiction between an entity with infallible foreknowledge and alternative possibilities then there is no contradiction with free will.
If there is a contradiction then the correctness of the principle of alternative possibilities matters. Suppose F means that agent S has free will over whether to do A or not. Remembering that P means S does A. We get the principle of alternative possibilities as if F then (possibly P and possibly not P). Or:
i) F -> (¬□¬P & ¬□P)
as possibly P is the same as not necessarily not P, using some logic rules (i) is the same as
ii) F -> ¬(□¬P v □P)
Or as a half way house between symbolic and verbal logic:
iii) if F then not ((necessarily not P) or (necessarily P))
In the Dr Black thought experiment above Mary has no alternate possibilities, she has to kill Mr White. So, for her, □P, necessarily P is true - she's committed by the device. This seems to imply that she has no free will in this matter. But the device did not activate. There is no problem with assigning moral responsibility to her, although she had no other live possibilities, she appears to have had free will because the device did not affect her thinking. So the principle of alternative possibilities seems problematic.
This means the possible worlds approach to free will appears to have problems as free will appears not to depend on alternative possibilities. However there is the argument that Mary's free will hinges on the presence of possible worlds where the device is not present and she does choose not to kill Mr White.
Since Plantinga's formulation seems to both allow the accidental necessity of the past and alternative possibilities this question doesn't arise. It really depends on whether one accepts the formulation of accidental necessity as being defined by whether any agent can change it or not, and whether it's possible to find a problem with Plantinga's formulation. I want to have a look at an alternative formulation and see if we can get results contradicting Plantinga's.
The thing with tinkering with definitions is that if we don't do that and just accept vague definitions we may allow ourselves to believe incoherent things. It's not just religion this should be applied to, science in an obvious way but really any field of human thought. You must have read novels where the author hasn't thought clearly about the relation between the characters and the plot.
Originally posted by DeepThoughtYou must have read novels where the author hasn't thought clearly about the relation between the characters and the plot.
All ideas lend themselves to a symbolic formulation. If you can say it in words you can write it symbolically. The advantage with a symbolic formulation is that non-obvious consequences can be derived using the rules of the formal language. Of course, the catch is that the formal language used has to be appropriate to the problem and the statement has ...[text shortened]... where the author hasn't thought clearly about the relation between the characters and the plot.
I'm not sure if this is a good example of what you mean, but I remember reading Prey by Michael Crichton. I found myself yelling (under my breath) at the expert who was called in to solve a problem, because he stopped at one point to take note of the solution (without realizing it was a solution) and then continued on his way looking for a solution... the solution was glaringly obvious. And so, after many more pages of drama, it finally dawns on him how the problem can be solved. It was exasperating and humorous at the same time, but it's science fiction and doesn't need to adhere as closely to reality as other forms of fiction. I'll bet you weren't expecting to hear a book review. But now that I think about it, you probably were...
In my opinion, there were elements of Dark Star that appear to conform with reality as far as character and plot development is concerned.