Originally posted by googlefudge
Oh hell I am not reading all that.
If you want to take issue with my statement/argument that it's impossible to have free will
in a deterministic universe then do it yourself in your own words.
In the hypothetical scenario where the universe was created by a god.
That universe is deterministic so that everything that will ever happen in it i ts and actions were pre-determined by events before your birth there is and can be no choice.
Although there is no causal link between knowing that X (even infallibly* knowing that X) and X actually happening, I think the logic works something like this:
1. G knows that X;
2. G’s knowledge is infallible;
3. it is possible that ~X.
But 3. contradicts 1. and 2., and results in a
reductio ad absurdum. Thus, it is illogical to suggest a state of affairs in which an infallibly knowing being can be wrong. Even infallible knowing does not cause the known effect, but if there is not some (known or unknown) deterministic mechanism that ensures that X, then you can have an absurd result.
If by
“free will” (whether of the libertarian or compatibilist varieties) one means that one can exercise
effective choice of outcomes (e.g., ~X), then G’s infallible knowing is
logically inconsistent with that “free will”. The “free will” version of the above
reductio might look like this:
1. G knows that P does X;
2. G’s knowledge is infallible;
3. it is possible that P does ~X.
Again, this proposes nothing more than that positing the conjunction of (a) infallible knowledge of an event, and (b) the possibility that an agent can effectively choose otherwise leads to logical contradiction. (I want to thank FreakyKBH and ConrauK for arguing with me about previous incarnations of this argument, which at least resulted in this reduced form that does not employ any temporal language, and my specifying “effective choice” being entailed by “free will”. They may or may not agree with the result, and logical corrections are certainly welcome.)
At bottom, while it is strictly incorrect to say that the universe is deterministic
because of G's infallible knowing, it is correct to say that G's infallible knowing is not logically consistent with alternate possible outcomes, whether effected by free human agency or not.
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* Although fallibilism is the more accepted epistemic view, it is not compatible with the omniscience normally predicated of god.