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06 Jun 10
bbarr
That seems to work, to me anyway.
I can still see the intuitive appeal of the view from nowhen as a way of attempting to reconcile god's omniscience with some notion of libertarian free will. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that an attempt to formalise this, perhaps using temporal logic or possible world semantics might simply reveal problems with specifying libertarian free will. I'll have a think.
I'd be interested to know what anybody thinks on this.
06 Jun 10
Originally posted by bbarrI have to say that is very nice. The presentation is extremely clear. The crux for me is definitely premise 4). I agree with your analysis there and like the way you have materially introduced infallibility. That is the main thing I have struggled with in the past as it concerns formulating the fatalist argument.
How about this:
P: God knows that you will A.
Q: You do not A.
L: Libertarianism is true.
1) Necessarily ~(P & Q)
Since it is logically impossible to know something that is false, the use of the modal operator in this premise is justified by the definition of 'know'.
2) So, necessarily (P > ~Q)
This simply follows from the derivation rul ...[text shortened]... ncerns about free will, this should be sufficient to get rid of these theistic commitments.
I will be interested to see if there are those who would deny the inference from infallibility to 4) and what their reasons for denial would be.
06 Jun 10
2 edits
Originally posted by Lord SharkI confess to not understanding the appeal of that response. Suppose that P in my argument stands for 'God knows that you A', or 'God knows from the point of view of eternity that you A'. The argument simply proceeds as before. No temporal concepts need be employed in the argument, so no response by reference to temporal concepts will make headway. What is more interesting, I think, is why theists would find this response attractive. Perhaps they think that since some arguments of this sort employ temporal concepts, they must be flawed because God is eternal ("don't bother me with the details!" ).
bbarr
That seems to work, to me anyway.
I can still see the intuitive appeal of the view from nowhen as a way of attempting to reconcile god's omniscience with some notion of libertarian free will. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that an attempt to formalise this, perhaps using temporal logic or possible world semantics might simply reveal problem ...[text shortened]... rian free will. I'll have a think.
I'd be interested to know what anybody thinks on this.
Or perhaps they think conditional claims like 'If God knows that you A, then you must A', indicate some sort of causal relationship; as though God's knowledge brings it about that you must A. This is a common confusion regarding conditionals. Conditionals just indicate a logical relationship between the truth-values of propositions, not to any connection between the referents of the terms found in propositions (e.g., 'If my cat is eating wet food, then I must have already gone to the store' does not indicate that facts about my cat and his diet somehow mysteriously caused or constrained something that happened in the past).
Or perhaps they think that since God is eternal, time must somehow be a function of our limited perspective or mental constitution or metaphysical boundedness. If God sees everything as an holistic present, then perhaps God knows what we will do directly (insert some perceptual analogy here), without need to predict. As mentioned initially, I am not sure how this helps. It certainly doesn't undermine anything in my argument. But even so, if God knows every true proposition, then He knows all the true propositions that refer to how things appear to those who are temporally enmeshed. So, He knows that, from your point of view, it appears to you as though you A at what you take to be time T. But if he knows this, then he knows it necessarily (pace the claim that he is infallible by definition). From this the familiar problem with libertarianism arises.
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06 Jun 10
Originally posted by bbarrbbarr,
I confess to not understanding the appeal of that response. Suppose that P in my argument stands for 'God knows that you A', or 'God knows from the point of view of eternity that you A'. The argument simply proceeds as before. No temporal concepts need be employed in the argument, so no response by reference to temporal concepts will make headway. What is ...[text shortened]... allible by definition). From this the familiar problem with libertarianism arises.
Given that this is an intuitive appeal that I think I can see, it is difficult to convey this. I don't know to what extent intuitive appeal can be expunged by logical argument.
Aristotle's 'Sea Battle' notes the difficulties in thinking about these things. If we imagine that the future is not fixed is a minimal condition of some form of libertarian free will then consider:
1. There will be a sea-battle tomorrow
2. There will not be a sea-battle tomorrow
But by the excluded middle, it could be argued that today exactly one of these is true and the other false. Suppose 1) is true now, then necessarily there will be a sea battle tomorrow (regardless of whether any agent knows that 1)
This leads to the conclusion that nothing is possible apart from what actually happens. I think the intuition that the theist has that there is something fishy about this is related to that which prompted Aristotle to reject that statements about the future are truth apt.
Although you could counter that both Aristotle and the theist are committing the fallacy of an argument from adverse consequences.
06 Jun 10
1 edit
Originally posted by Lord SharkLord Shark,
bbarr,
Given that this is an intuitive appeal that I think I can see, it is difficult to convey this. I don't know to what extent intuitive appeal can be expunged by logical argument.
Aristotle's 'Sea Battle' notes the difficulties in thinking about these things. If we imagine that the future is not fixed is a minimal condition of some form of liber ...[text shortened]... ristotle and the theist are committing the fallacy of an argument from adverse consequences.
I think that in your discussion of Aristotle's example you are committing the same error I tried to make clear in my response to LJ. I could certainly be wrong about this. I specialize in ethics and epistemology, not formal logic. But consider:
Let P be the proposition that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow. By the law of the excluded middle, it is necessary that (P v ~P). Suppose that today it is true that P. Then it necessarily follows that ~~P. That is, it necessarily follows that P. But it does not follow that P itself is necessary. The entailment is necessary, but not the truth of the conclusion. Put this in terms of possible worlds. In every possible world (P or ~P). Suppose that it is true in this world that P. Then, for every possible world identical to this world, ~~P. That is, for every possible world identical to this world, P. But it does not follow from the supposition that it is true in this world that P, that it is true in every possible world that P. But that just means it is not necessary that P. Look, just because there will be a sea-battle tomorrow in this world, it does not follow that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow in every possible world. In fact, no derivation rules in modal logic allow this move, which is why I tried to reconstruct LJ's argument in the first place.
Here is another way of making the point. The proposition 'Necessarily (P v ~P)' is equivalent to the proposition 'Necessarily (P > ~~P)' (i.e., 'Necessarily, if there is a sea-battle tomorrow, then it is not the case that were will not be a sea-battle tomorrow'😉. This proposition, in turn, is equivalent to 'If Necessarily P > Necessarily ~~P' (or so say the derivation rules of modal logic). In short, what the law of the excluded middle gets you is the claim that if a proposition is true in every possible world, then its negation is false in every possible world. What it does not get you, what is cannot get you, is the claim 'If P > Necessarily P'. That is just a fallacy, and I think you are committing it in your post above.
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06 Jun 10
Originally posted by bbarrI'll have to think some more about your response, but my initial reaction is this: I said that the theist thinks there is something fishy about the argument I presented about the sea battle and you have already provided the argument to show what it is.
Lord Shark,
I think that in your discussion of Aristotle's example you are committing the same error I tried to make clear in my response to LJ. I could certainly be wrong about this. I specialize in ethics and epistemology, not formal logic. But consider:
Let P be the proposition that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow. By the law of the excluded mi ...[text shortened]... y P'. That is just a fallacy, and I think you are committing it in your post above.
My speculation though, is that the theist carries the (correct) intuition regarding the Sea Battle and P over to the situation where god knows P. The similarity would run this way:
if G knows P then it necessarily follows that P (from the definition of knowledge), but it doesn't follow that P is necessary.
Bear in mind, I am not attempting to present rigorous arguments in such a time frame as this, I don't have the chops for that. I am trying to evoke the flavour of an intuitive appeal. Since you have thought it through, the flavour is unlikely to appeal to you perhaps.
06 Jun 10
1 edit
Originally posted by bbarrThis may be stupid...but...
O.K., but this is preliminary and I need to keep thinking about it.
Your argument makes a move from premise 2 to 3 that goes, in outline, as follows:
1) It is not possible that (P & Q)
2) P
3) Therefore, it is not possible that Q
Now suppose that Q is just the negation of P. If we substitute accordingly we get the following argument:
1) It is no how it initially seems to me. I am going to have to go back to by notes on modal logic proofs.
the problem arises if Q = ~P, but Q can be a subset of ~P, which would not imply that necessarily P.
06 Jun 10
1 edit
Originally posted by vishvahetuI don't like this post getting ignored and don't like interrupting the flow. Sorry both ways. vishvahetu wrote:
to PBE6
God is removed from the mundane goings on of the world, and the child who is molested has their own karma to deal with, we do not know the karma of another but karma is the same as cause and affect.
which means that for a child to be molested, they would have set that up, on some level unbeknown to us, any how the body is temporary, and the ...[text shortened]... niverse and beyond, and their is no such thing as good and bad in gods mind
cheers vishvahetu
the child who is molested has their own karma to deal with, we do not know the karma of another but karma is the same as cause and affect.
The responsibility for molesting a child rest with the molester and not with the child. Any deviation from that is unacceptable.
The notion of karma is partly intended to be helpful. In working with the child after the event, probably as an adult indeed, the idea may be that the survivor learn to recover a sense of their own autonomy and thus to come to grips with the problems arising. I agree that matters. However violated, recovery is something that the survivor has to achieve through a sense of their autonomy.
But I also consider that part of the recovery process for a survivor is to be very clear about where the responsibility lies and that is with the molester. There is actually a lot of pressure to blame the victim, as that makes things more comfortable for everyone else, and many victims do indeed feel that they are to blame, but it is a harmful line to adopt and I reject it.
More importantly, I think that the world of positive thinking is foolish - stuff happens, very bad stuff. It is not caused by our karma - we do not deserve it - we do not set ourselves up for it. It just happens. Often it is caused by other people without our consent or complicity. The victim is not responsible.
06 Jun 10
Originally posted by Lord SharkAh, I see. While the eternalist appeal continues to elude me, I do understand your diagnosis of the theist's concern. You are claiming that the theist recognizes, perhaps opaquely, that something is wrong with arguments like Aristotle's (and, by extension, any argument the derives modal claims from facts about the truth-values of propositions about the future), and then reject, on these same grounds, arguments attempting to show that infallible foreknowledge is incompatible with libertarianism. This could be. But even so, the theist's intuitions here are in error. First, argument's like Aristotle's really don't have anything to do with foreknowledge, but rather with the mistaken modal inference I tried to clear up above. Suppose that P is 'There was a sea-battle yesterday'. The same mistaken modal inference will yield the conclusion that P is necessary. Again, temporal notions have nothing to do with the reason why this inference is erroneous. If you think that 'Necessarily (P v ~P)' and 'P' entail 'Necessarily P', you are making the erroneous modal inference, and it really doesn't matter whether P refers to the past, present, future or eternity. Second, and hence, the eternalist response really misses the point. A theist who thinks the eternalist response is attractive because of problems with the modal inference employed in arguments like Aristotle's simply fails to see to the root of these problems.
I'll have to think some more about your response, but my initial reaction is this: I said that the theist thinks there is something fishy about the argument I presented about the sea battle and you have already provided the argument to show what it is.
My speculation though, is that the theist carries the (correct) intuition regarding the Sea Battle a ...[text shortened]... appeal. Since you have thought it through, the flavour is unlikely to appeal to you perhaps.
Thanks for helping me see all this.
06 Jun 10
Originally posted by PalynkaYour question isn't stupid. We are probably just being unclear. So, 'P' and 'Q' are used here as propositional variables. They can stand for any proposition; that is, for any declarative statement. I am not sure what you mean by proposing that Q can be a subset of ~P. Since 'P' and 'Q' can refer to any proposition whatever, there is a sense in which P and Q take as possible objects the set of all propositions. So, in a sense, the set of propositions to which P could refer is just identical to, and hence a subset of, the set of propositions to which Q could refer. But it does not make sense to say that any propositional variable is a proper subset of another. If we were doing predicate logic, we would not be using propositional variables, but rather two different kinds of variables: one to stand in for objects, entities, events, etc. in what logicians call 'the domain of discourse', and one to stand in for predicates or properties attributable to those objects, entities, events, etc. In predicate logic we would not use 'P's and 'Q's, but rather 'Fx's and 'Gy's (read as 'x has the property F', and 'y has the property G', respectively). Here you can do interesting things with subsets. For instance, ((x)(Fx > Gx) & (Ey)(Gy & ~Fy)) reads "Everything that is an F is also a G, but at least one thing is a G and not an F". In short, that the set of things that are F is a proper subset of the set of things that are G.
This may be stupid...but...
the problem arises if Q = ~P, but Q can be a subset of ~P, which would not imply that necessarily P.
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06 Jun 10
Originally posted by bbarrbbarr,
Ah, I see. While the eternalist appeal continues to elude me, I do understand your diagnosis of the theist's concern. You are claiming that the theist recognizes, perhaps opaquely, that something is wrong with arguments like Aristotle's (and, by extension, any argument the derives modal claims from facts about the truth-values of propositions about the futur ...[text shortened]... s to see to the root of these problems.
Thanks for helping me see all this.
Yes that's what I was trying to get across.
I think there is one more element, which I've mentioned already. You rightly argue that the Sea Battle scenario is not to do with foreknowledge. But theists don't think god's omniscience is to do with foreknowledge either. I can understand why that doesn't necessarily help them but I can also understand why they might feel that your argument is fishy too.
I can clearly see that it isn't. You have used the distributive law for necessity (to get from 2 to 3) which, as you say, is accepted in modal logic. If we allow 4) it is plain sailing from there.
Perhaps they might think that god knowing that you will A is no different from Jones knowing that you did A, for the purposes of the argument (it's all the same to god who is atemporal). They might reason that infallibility has nothing to do with it. An agent either knows P or does not. Jones knows it from the vantage point of it being in the past, whereas god knows it from nowhen.
But that doesn't work (as you have said).
To see why, suppose we change P in your argument to:
P: Jones knows that yesterday you did A
Where does the argument break down (as it must)?
I think the answer is at 4.
For Jones, even though P refers to an event in the past, it doesn't follow that it is necessary that Jones knows that yesterday you did A. For Jones, that's contingent. The same is not true for the stipulated god.
So I wonder whether the the confusion arises from the notion of infallibility. In English this could mean just accuracy. For an accurate reasoner all that is required is that, where B is the belief operator:
for all p(Bp > p)
But an omniscient reasoner is a much stronger condition, which warrants 4.
At least that's my intuition about theirs. I could be overthinking it. In any case, thanks for taking the time.
07 Jun 10
Originally posted by Lord SharkI agree with everything you've posted. Thanks for your help in clarifying these issues. So, I guess the question I asked rhetorically in defense of (4) really is the crux of the matter. Is it logically possible that God could be wrong? If not, then the argument proceeds to the conclusion that libertarianism is false. Suppose the theist claims that, although it is logically possible that God could be wrong, as a matter of contingent fact He never is. It follows, then, on a possible-worlds semantics that although God is never wrong in the actual world, He is wrong in at least one possible world. It seems some explanation is then required for why God is always right in only some worlds. That is, some explanation is required for why God is never wrong in this world. Perhaps the theist would here be tempted to exploit the view from eternity, probably combined with some perceptual metaphor, as in "God just sees directly and at once the entire, temporally-related state of affairs that constitutes creation...". But then there is a dilemma. Either the epistemic advantages of the view from eternity are sufficient to guarantee that God is never wrong, or they are not. If they are, then the theist is back to claiming that God necessarily knows. If they are not, then the theist must provide some other explanation for the putative fact that God is contingently never wrong. I'm not sure theists would find this avenue attractive, in any case.
bbarr,
Yes that's what I was trying to get across.
I think there is one more element, which I've mentioned already. You rightly argue that the Sea Battle scenario is not to do with foreknowledge. But theists don't think god's omniscience is to do with foreknowledge either. I can understand why that doesn't necessarily help them but I can also unders ...[text shortened]... on about theirs. I could be overthinking it. In any case, thanks for taking the time.
Also, here is an interesting implication of this line of theistic response:
Theist: "God knows that P."
Me: "But He could be wrong about P."
Theist: "Yes, but as a matter of fact, He is never wrong."
Me: "But what justifies this claim about God?"
Theist: "It is part of the very notion of God."
Me: "So if God exists, then it necessarily follows that God is contingently never wrong."
Theist: "Yes."
Me: "So there is no possible world in which God exists and He is wrong."
Theist: "Yes."
Me: "So it is necessary that it is not the case both that God exists and He is wrong."
Theist: "Yes."
Me: "So if it is necessary that God exists, then it is necessary that He is not wrong."
Theist: "It seems so."
Me: "But, by the contrapositive of that conditional, if it is possible that God is wrong, then it is possible that God does not exist."
Theist: "Um, I guess so."
Me: "So is it possible that God does not exist?"
Theist: "Apparently."
Great discussion, Lord Shark. Thanks.
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07 Jun 10
Originally posted by bbarrbbarr,
I agree with everything you've posted. Thanks for your help in clarifying these issues. So, I guess the question I asked rhetorically in defense of (4) really is the crux of the matter. Is it logically possible that God could be wrong? If not, then the argument proceeds to the conclusion that libertarianism is false. Suppose the theist claims that, althou ...[text shortened]... : "Apparently."
Great discussion, Lord Shark. Thanks.
Likewise, thank you and yes I think what you said about 4 is the crux of it.
I like your latest. If I have it right then:
Let Nec be the necessity operator
Let Pos be the possibility operator
Let Q = god exists
Let R = god is not wrong
Me: "So it is necessary that it is not the case both that God exists and He is wrong."
Gives:
Nec~(Q & ~R)
Nec~~(Q > R)
Nec(Q > R)
NecQ > NecR (Distribution axiom)
Which is: "So if it is necessary that God exists, then it is necessary that He is not wrong."
Taking the contrapositive:
~NecR > ~NecQ
Double negation:
~Nec~~R > ~Nec~~Q
In general PosA = ~Nec~A
So we have Pos~R > Pos~Q
Which is "if it is possible that God is wrong, then it is possible that God does not exist."
(Please forgive the slight longwindedness as I'm no expert at this).
09 Jun 10
Originally posted by finneganto finnegan
I don't like this post getting ignored and don't like interrupting the flow. Sorry both ways. vishvahetu wrote:
[b] the child who is molested has their own karma to deal with, we do not know the karma of another but karma is the same as cause and affect.
The responsibility for molesting a child rest with the molester and not with the child. A ...[text shortened]... it is caused by other people without our consent or complicity. The victim is not responsible.[/b]
kama goes back beyond this present life, so the little girl who gets molested, could have been a molester themseles in a previous life.
in a previous life the little girl may have been man, and in this life the principle of (cause and effect )is being played out as the girl being molested, and in this sense there are no victims.
you can understand this when veiwing the big picture.
cheers vishvahetu