Free Will is "now"..

I'm guessing that many of you would not have a logical problem with the following hypothetical ...(assuming God exists of course)

1) If you have free will and right now you make a free choice between A or B then God would know that choice outcome right now in this present moment.

Okay , if you see no problem with this then I would ask you to think about the following....

Let's say you choose B right now . Okay, Back in what for you was 2002 this choice outcome B in 2008 was what you would have called your "future" but now it is what you call the "present" . You have no problem with the idea that God can be here in 2008 knowing the choice you are making in this present moment (except it's now just become your past).

Back in 2002 you would also have had no problem with God knowing your choices in that present moment either. The difficulty is that in 2002 you would have said something like "there's no way that God can know what I will choose in march 2008 in the future if my choices are free" .

BUT , here God is (if he exists) knowing precisely the free choice you are making and you have no problem with that because it's now the present and not the future any more (at least for you it isn't).

The point of this is that we imagine that an eternal God would have to travel through time kind of alongside us sort of waiting for us to make free choices as us and God walk through time together.

But here's the interesting thought. God has always been here in 2008 watching and knowing whatever free choice you are making in this present moment. He was here when you were in 2002 and right now he is with you in 2009 also.

This is a massive problem for you because you are moving through time in a "series" of present moments , but for God this is not a problem because all these present moments are not in sequence like they are for you .For him they are just as presently "now" as this one is for you.This is because in a sense we are fragmented through time experiencing it a little bit at a time in small slices of "nows" a bit at a time. This makes it hard for us to comprehend how God can do what he does. But really it's just a matter of him being a dimension beyond what we can logically comprehend.

Originally posted by knightmeister
it's just a matter of him being a dimension beyond what we can logically comprehend.

Bingo!

Originally posted by Starrman
Bingo!

Yes , because our comprehension is often based on our position in time rather than on a use of imagination and a projection of how a further dimension might relate to our 4 dimensions.

This is what I have been doing recently and obviously you don't like it and have latched onto anything you can grasp in my words to de-value this position. I have not said that such an idea is illogical or incomprehensibe, only that if we stick rigidly to our own time perspective and perception it "seems" illogical to us. Fortunately human beings have been blessed with the ability to extrapolate and imagine and use models that provide analogies we can use to comprehend these things.

Maybe you are not so blessed?

Originally posted by knightmeister
Yes , because our comprehension is often based on our position in time rather than on a use of imagination and a projection of how a further dimension might relate to our 4 dimensions.

This is what I have been doing recently and obviously you don't like it and have latched onto anything you can grasp in my words to de-value this position. I have no ...[text shortened]... at provide analogies we can use to comprehend these things.

Maybe you are not so blessed?

I'm all for extrapolation when you have some structure to extrapolate from and all for imagination when you aren't trying to nail a hypothesis down. Unfortunately you're extrapolating from nowhere and consequently on a one way course to nonsenseville and using imagination as a tool hypothesise which leaves you broken down at the side of the road.

If you're going to pursue a hypothesis at least start at some empirical certainty and use some method other than imagination to get you headed towards it. At the moment your idea is the sort of thing that hippies talk about in dope fueled ramblings.

Originally posted by Starrman
I'm all for extrapolation when you have some structure to extrapolate from and all for imagination when you aren't trying to nail a hypothesis down. Unfortunately you're extrapolating from nowhere and consequently on a one way course to nonsenseville and using imagination as a tool hypothesise which leaves you broken down at the side of the road.

If y the moment your idea is the sort of thing that hippies talk about in dope fueled ramblings.

If you're going to pursue a hypothesis at least start at some empirical certainty and use some method other than imagination to get you headed towards it.---starrman----

If you look at my other threads on this I am indeed doing this. I am using Hitler , Alexander the Great , Heisenberg +quantum uncertainty and also using our current knowledge of the past to illustrate some points. Your attempts to pigeon hole me as a hippie don't wash.

The starting point for me is that knowledge of Hitler's future (your past - his future) does not exclude the possibility that Hitler had free will. Simply knowing what Hitler does with his future choices does not mean that he could not have had free will. We are also able to know the outcomes of random quantum events but this does not mean that these events suddenly become determined events. How empirical do you want me to get?

You need to understand what I specifically trying to achieve here. I cannot prove that Free will and God's eternal knowledge ARE compatible but I do think I can show that the idea that free will and God's eternal knowledge (omniscience) MUST be incompatible is unreasonable. The reason why I say this is that the Atheist position is almost always based on a misconception of God by placing him within our timeline and also a rigid non-relative understanding of time. Once you think of time as just a dimension like any other then it becomes easier to conceive of.

You see overall , I get the strong feeling that people like Brian Greene (string theory) and other theoretical physicists would be much more sympathetic to my idea tha n you are being because they are used to thinking about time/space in imaginative ways and do believe in further dimensions than just 4. They probably wouldn't believe in God , but they would be used to thinking "outside the box".

Can you honestly say , hand on heart , and look yourself in the mirror that you are really giving the idea a chance to sink in?

The idea of these threads is to get you thinking and to get you to challenge any preconceptions you might have about time and God. You obviously don't want to do that.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If you're going to pursue a hypothesis at least start at some empirical certainty and use some method other than imagination to get you headed towards it.---starrman----

If you look at my other threads on this I am indeed doing this. I am using Hitler , Alexander the Great , Heisenberg +quantum uncertainty and also using our current knowledge of the ...[text shortened]... preconceptions you might have about time and God. You obviously don't want to do that.

I mean your starting point in reference to god. To have any empirical process you've got to have some factual representation of god's abilities, perception, actions etc. Just saying he exists in his own time/dimension is meaningless, it is the equivalent of saying 'custard develops helicopters for blue whilst thought' or some such. You cannot form an argument based on something which has absolutely no structure whatsoever. God may exist in a time/dimension as you suggest, but he may also exist in an unquantifiable number of others or none at all. Your argument is utterly flawed from the start, it's just rambling nonsense.

If you're going to suggest placing god in a rigid timeline is a misconception you must provide evidence of the conception which you believe exists and you cannot nor will ever be able to do this. You're not thinking outside the box you're thinking outside a world in which boxes exist.

Originally posted by Starrman
I mean your starting point in reference to god. To have any empirical process you've got to have some factual representation of god's abilities, perception, actions etc. Just saying he exists in his own time/dimension is meaningless, it is the equivalent of saying 'custard develops helicopters for blue whilst thought' or some such. You cannot form an arg ou're not thinking outside the box you're thinking outside a world in which boxes exist.

But you miss the point entirely. I reject the notion that God is on our timeline and is restricted by this in the way we are. Infact such a god would not be God at all really.

My starting point is infact the Atheist argument X

X) = "If God exists and he is omniscient of everything then he must know what I will choose to do tomorrow , therefore I cannot have free will about tomorrows choice and Christianity is self contradictory".

Now what you have to decide is whether you want to remain within the boundaries of X and my counter argument to X . If you want to discuss Y) "God cannot exist at all" or W) " Dimensions beyond time are impossible " then feel free to do so but they are NOT X.

X is about an attempt to show that Christian belief on X is self contradictory and in order to argue for X you have to accept X's basic hypothetical premises. If you do not accept them then you are not proving X are you?

You asking me to provide evidence of God's omniscience is all well and good but it has nothing at all to do with X. This is basic stuff.

Now go away , take a deep breath and please decide which debate you would like to have because at present you have said very little about X.

Originally posted by knightmeister
But you miss the point entirely. I reject the notion that God is on our timeline and is restricted by this in the way we are. Infact such a god would not be God at all really.

My starting point is infact the Atheist argument X

X) = "If God exists and he is omniscient of everything then he must know what I will choose to do tomorrow , therefore ...[text shortened]... hich debate you would like to have because at present you have said very little about X.

Christ you're dense. Your counter argument is all I've been talking about. You cannot counter an argument by providing a theory which is utterly unsupportable. It's not that I think it's wrong, it's that I think your counter argument is utterly invalid. I'm done with you, you need your head looking at.

Originally posted by Starrman
Christ you're dense. Your counter argument is all I've been talking about. You cannot counter an argument by providing a theory which is utterly unsupportable. It's not that I think it's wrong, it's that I think your counter argument is utterly invalid. I'm done with you, you need your head looking at.

But X relies upon proving that the Christian position on God and free will is self contradictory (eg -> A) free will and B) God is eternally omniscient- A and B are incompatible) .

If you choose not to accept A or B as hypothetically true then you cannot prove X can you?

My assertion is that if we have free will (A) and God is eternal (B) (ie 5 dimensional) then A and B are not as self contradictory as they might at first seem due to our position in 4 dimensions relative to a possible 5 dimensions.

If you want an empirical way in how about the evidence from the Hubble deep field pictures into deep space. ? When we see early galaxies and clusters we are literally looking into the past. We can actually see the 4 dimensions of space time. Is the "now" that we see in these pictures actually now or is our now the real now? Are they both "now" or is there some great newtonian "now" that slices through the whole universe? What say you?

Originally posted by knightmeister
My assertion is that if we have free will (A) and God is eternal (B) (ie 5 dimensional) then A and B are not as self contradictory as they might at first seem due to our position in 4 dimensions relative to a possible 5 dimensions.

And my assertion is that the existence of the 5th dimension you propose is incompatible with free will. You cannot avoid it.
You also make the fundamental flaw of apparently claiming that we experience free will, which you have not proven, or even noted as an assumption.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And my assertion is that the existence of the 5th dimension you propose is incompatible with free will. You cannot avoid it.
You also make the fundamental flaw of apparently claiming that we experience free will, which you have not proven, or even noted as an assumption.

But despite asserting that A and B are incompatible you still use deterministic models of human choices or time trapped concepts of God to try and do this which negates A and B at given times.

The arguments about whether free will exists is separate and you know it. Hypothetically if we have free will and God is 5 dimensional then he could know you future choices and experience them as present choices just as he experiences your current present choices.

It's not really that hard. It just requires thinking about time from differing perspectives and realising that "your" future is not neccessarily "the" future.

Originally posted by knightmeister
But despite asserting that A and B are incompatible you still use deterministic models of human choices or time trapped concepts of God to try and do this which negates A and B at given times.

I don't understand you.

The arguments about whether free will exists is separate and you know it.
Not entirely, no. You are using, incorrectly, the assumption that free will exists.

Hypothetically if we have free will and God is 5 dimensional then he could know you future choices and experience them as present choices just as he experiences your current present choices.
As I have explained over and over and over, that is impossible. I think you know it too or you wouldn't keep starting new threads to try and avoid answering difficult questions.

It's not really that hard. It just requires thinking about time from differing perspectives and realising that "your" future is not neccessarily "the" future.
Either my future is 'the' future or it isn't. If it is, then life is deterministic hence no free will. If it isn't, then your proposed dimension 5 cannot exist, hence no God.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't understand you.

[b]The arguments about whether free will exists is separate and you know it.
Not entirely, no. You are using, incorrectly, the assumption that free will exists.

Hypothetically if we have free will and God is 5 dimensional then he could know you future choices and experience them as present choices just as he experienc ...[text shortened]... no free will. If it isn't, then your proposed dimension 5 cannot exist, hence no God.

This is the argument I am offering to counter.

X) = "If God exists and he is omniscient of everything then he must know what I will choose to do tomorrow , therefore I cannot have free will about tomorrows choice and Christianity is self contradictory".

The argument X hypothetically assumes that free will exists

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't understand you.

[b]The arguments about whether free will exists is separate and you know it.
Not entirely, no. You are using, incorrectly, the assumption that free will exists.

Hypothetically if we have free will and God is 5 dimensional then he could know you future choices and experience them as present choices just as he experienc ...[text shortened]... no free will. If it isn't, then your proposed dimension 5 cannot exist, hence no God.

Either my future is 'the' future or it isn't. If it is, then life is deterministic hence no free will. If it isn't, then your proposed dimension 5 cannot exist, hence no God.---whitey----

Your future is "the " future for you but for God it is already past. Hitler's future is your past , it all depends from which aspect of the time dimension you are looking from. You are on a particular point in the dimension of time , hitler is on another. What he sees is not what you see. God sees something else entirely. Your concept of "the" future seems quite egocentric and based entirely on your perspective only.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I'm guessing that many of you would not have a logical problem with the following hypothetical ...(assuming God exists of course)

1) If you have free will and right now you make a free choice between A or B then God would know that choice outcome right now in this present moment.

Okay , if you see no problem with this then I would ask you to ...[text shortened]... t a matter of him being a dimension beyond what we can logically comprehend.

I agree with you.
Knowing the outcome of choices made in the past does not mean that free will does not exist. (It doesn't mean that free will exists as well but that's beside the point)

Otto