Most vile concept/aspect of christianity?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
No, it's not.

To say that something is logically impossible is to say that there exists no possible world where it is true. There is clearly a possible world where it did come up tails, so it's not logically impossible. It didn't come up tails in our world, so it's false.

Ridiculous. You continue to equivocate.

It is logically impossible that it came up tails in this world or in any other world in which in came up heads. Any world in which it came up tails is irrelevant and outside the universe of discourse because it violates the premise that it came up heads.

Let us restrict our discussion to this universe anyway. To posit others in which all possibilities occur makes the topic meaningless, since we certainly don't have free will in that case, as we follow all possible alternatives.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
It seems that everybody but you must be mistaken.

I'll bet there are members of your wolf pack who agree with me on this.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I'll bet there are members of your wolf pack who agree with me on this.

Find me one and I'll go to Catholic Mass once a week for a month.

In particular, find me one who believes that the existence of an omniscient being does not preclude free will.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Or he's using a compatibilist notion of free will.

I plead ignorance.

What does this entail?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Ridiculous.

It is logically impossible that it came up tails in this world or in any other world in which in came up heads. Any world in which it came up tails is irrelevant and outside the universe of discourse because it violates the premise that it came up heads.

Let us restrict our discussion to this universe anyway. To posit others in ...[text shortened]... we certainly don't have free will in that case, as we follow all possible alternatives.

Take a look at the difference between the truth of propositions, and the possibility of propositions in this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_worlds#Possibility.2C_necessity.2C_and_contingency

To say that we have free will simply means that all of our actions are contingently so.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The decree does not 'give people their lines,' force them to read them and then condemn them for doing so in the end. The decree makes all of creation certain. I suggest your vision needs to expand in order to properly understand the concept. Read the thread for the expanded version which includes the particulars both you and Dave cite.

So, people aren't told what to do, but what they are going to do
is preordained such that they have no ability to do something that
is not preordained.

But this is still free will?

How can you not see the problem with this?

Nemesio

Originally posted by lucifershammer
You and Scribs are committing the same mistake - you're confusing your epistemology and your metaphysics.

Non-deterministic (I prefer that term to 'libertarian' - libertarian free will is a subset of non-deterministic theories) free will simply states that given a sequence of events (E1, E2,... En, S), where S is an event involving free will, that S is true (and consequently, that S' is false) - not that S' is logically impossible.

Okay, let me try it this way:

(1) An omniscient being G knows with certainty at time (t(e)-t) that an event E will occur at time t(e).

(2) It is possible that at time t(e)-t, the time of the omniscient knowledge that event E will occur, that another event ~E will instead occur.

(3) If event ~E is an actual possibility at time t(e)-t, then E is not a certain outcome but only a possible one.

(4) If E is not a certain outcome, then G cannot know with certainty that E will occur; i.e., G is not omniscient.

(5) But G is omniscient, by (1).

Alternatively, if at time t(e)+1, ~E was a logically possible outcome, even though E actually occurred, then all that can be said about G’s omniscience is that it entails knowing all the possible outcomes in logical space, but not about knowing actual outcomes. This seems to me to be a rather more minimal claim of omniscience..... As a matter of fact, I believe it would render G's omniscience immaterial.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Find me one and I'll go to Catholic Mass once a week for a month.

In particular, find me one who believes that the existence of an omniscient being does not preclude free will.

The resident philosopher of your WP believes that free will (in the manner we've been discussing it) is impossible/incoherent anyway.

And neither free will nor omniscience is at the heart of our debate.

The real questions are:

(1) Is foreknowledge logically impossible?

and

(2) Does foreknowledge of an event make alternatives logically impossible?

Originally posted by Nemesio
I plead ignorance.

What does this entail?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism#Compatibilism

Basically, compatibilist free will simply means that the action was in accordance with the desires of the actor, not that he could've chosen otherwise.

Originally posted by lucifershammer


(1) Is foreknowledge logically impossible?

and

(2) Does foreknowledge of an event make alternatives logically impossible?

I deny (1) and assert (2). Vistesd just sketched a good proof of (2).

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
I deny (1) and assert (2). Vistesd just sketched a good proof of (2).

If I understand correctly (as I scramble to keep up here), in any logically possible world in which ~E might could occur, rather than E, God would not have certain foreknowledge of E in that world.

I’m not sure what it means to say that, at time t(e)-t, event E will occur with 100% probability, and yet ~E remains logically possible at time t(e)-t. It seems to me that ~E can remain logically possible only in another possible world where G does not have such foreknowledge?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism#Compatibilism

Basically, compatibilist free will simply means that the action was in accordance with the desires of the actor, not that he could've chosen otherwise.

There seems to be a distinction between compatibilism and what FreakyKBH is talking about.

Consider this example: I have a fair coin. If I toss it, there is a 50%
chance of its landing as heads or tails.

Now, let's say I have a machine that flips coins in a controlled manner.
That is, it can flip a fair coin such that it always lands as heads by
controlling precisely the number of rotations the coin does in the air.
(Say the machine is in some controlled room where the chaos caused
by the fluid 'air' would not be sufficient to overcome the 'heads'
outcome.)

Certainly, you wouldn't say that the fair coin still has a 50% chance of
landing as tails, right?

If God has 'decreed' that the event shall happen (and given that
God's decrees are never false), how are we different than the coin?
Sure, we have a bunch of choices just like the coin has a natural
possibility of landing tails, but if prevented by decree (machine) those
'choices' are illusory. It may appear to us that we 'willed' something
but, in fact, we are simply fulfilling the preordained action.

If I have missed something, or if my analogy is overlooking an
essential aspect, please, let me know.

Nemesio

Originally posted by vistesd


I’m not sure what it means to say that, [b]at time t(e)-t, event E will occur with 100% probability, and yet ~E remains logically possible at time t(e)-t. [/b]

It doesn't mean anything at all. That's the entire flaw in LH's thinking.

For something to be possible, it must have a non-zero probability of occuring, for all things with zero probability of occuring are impossible. But if E will occur with probability one, then ~E must have probability zero by the law of total probability.

Thus, you can assert at most one of:
E will occur with 100% probability, or
~E is logically possible

Originally posted by lucifershammer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism#Compatibilism

Basically, compatibilist free will simply means that the action was in accordance with the desires of the actor, not that he could've chosen otherwise.

Post Script:

Compatibilism is not reconcilable with a notion that God decrees things
in any event. If, at the beginning of time, God has 'decreed' that
the current world shall exist, then the imaginary worlds to which
Hume refers have no bearing; there are no different beliefs or
circumstances that might have come into the mix, for all of those
were, similarly, decreed by God in the first place.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Post Script:

Compatibilism is not reconcilable with a notion that God decrees things
in any event. If, at the beginning of time, God has 'decreed' that
the current world shall exist, then the imaginary worlds to which
Hume refers have no bearing; there are no different beliefs or
circumstances that might have come into the mix, for all of those
were, similarly, decreed by God in the first place.

Nemesio

I recently had a thread on this and Bbar attacked me this competiblist idea.
However, I believe that the idea of compatibilism is a purely semantic one. All we're doing is changing definitions of free will in order to render it valid. Here is are the wo definitions of free will:
1) Freedom of action. To have free will entails that one could have done action A as well as action A'.
2) Freedom of will. To have free will, one's will must be free (the nature of freedom does not alter the nature of the will). This means one must be physically able to do A and A', even if one could (according to determinism) do only A. This just seems to be freedom.

Although as Vistesd pointed out, we can have freedom of action (because the collapse of the wave function is [we think] random) this still doesn't seem to be free will. I believe free will must entail a choice. Say we go down a garden path and we are confronted by a cross-ways. According to definition (2) we have free will if we go down the path we wanted to go down (this is the compatiblisit argument). However, definition (1) cannot occur; if our action is determined, then if we go down one path, we could not have gone down another. Thus we have no freedom of action.

However, if as Vistesd said, both paths were possible (because which path we go down is uncertain according to Quantum mechanics) then we have freedom of action. Although this does not seem to be free will since we have no choice in which action we take (its random). It also wouldn't satisfy definition (2).

Thus, the first definition of free will (the one most would subscribe to) does not exist and the second definition means that free will is only a potential of a person (and can really never be known since we can't be sure what ones will is and if they are acting freely on it).

[edit]: so if God decreed this (and it is thus inevitable), then according to definition 1 we have no free will.

But I think Freaky was thinking of definition (2). If God creates man, and he knows what man wants to do, then he knows what man will do. Thus, he knows mans future. The mans future is ergo, determined, but he still has free will because that is what he wanted to do.