Pascal's Wager Revisited

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Do you view human beings as inanimate objects without any immaterial components?

I am not sure why you copy/pasted the definition of 'preset'. Were you under the impression that I do not speak English very well?

Now let me do one for you:

inanimate
ɪnˈanɪmət/Submit
adjective
not alive.
"inanimate objects like stones"
showing no sign of life; lifeless.
"he was completely inanimate and it was difficult to see if he was breathing"
synonyms: lifeless, insentient, insensate, without life, inert, motionless;

No, human beings are not inanimate objects. The word 'immaterial' is a bit more vague so I would ask for your intended meaning before answering the second part.


But whatever my answer may be, it doesn't resolve your dilemma.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by DeepThought
"So at least within the modal logic they were using there is no contradiction between free will and omniscience."

Doesn't the fact that man can decide and act contrary to the will of God support the existence of human freewill?

Note: Thanks for these thread links.

I'm not claiming that either omniscience or free will exist, merely that they do not contradict one another. However, if God exists then I see no reason why he shouldn't be omniscient at least as far as this universe is concerned, and if God exists then free will exists as otherwise we have a creator God judging people for things they have no control over, which if not exactly a contradiction would be bizarre.

Having said that, free will is a tricky concept. Suppose I have a choice between taking some action and not taking it. I have some bias towards one of the choices, but could choose the other. Now, consider two possible worlds, one where I take the action and one where I don't. Up until I take make the decision the two worlds are identical in all respects, significantly with regard to my brain state and mind state. Given that my brain states are identical in both universes why, other than randomness, should I take the action in one universe and not the other?

If random variation is all that free will is then free will, in the metaphysical sense, does not exist - we are forced into the conclusion that the concept is at best incoherent. Some philosophers talk about "freedom to act" which is essentially political free will and that metaphysical free will does not exist. But, we have the strong intuition that we do have control over our decisions and I feel that the denial of free will leaves us as philosophical zombies. So my feeling is that there is such a thing as free will and it is more than just "freedom to act", but that the concept is not properly defined.

Originally posted by DeepThought
...we have a creator God judging people for things they have no control over, which if not exactly a contradiction would be bizarre.

Well if an omniscient god knows what we will do then he already
has a list of the good and the bad. We cannot change our destinies
because that would make god's prediction WRONG. So why doesn't
he quit mucking about and just do a quick sort of all the souls who
have lived or ever will live and put them in their pre-determined places
for eternity?

Originally posted by DeepThought
I'm not claiming that either omniscience or free will exist, merely that they do not contradict one another.

Whether or not they contradict each other depends on how you define the two terms.

However, if God exists then I see no reason why he shouldn't be omniscient at least as far as this universe is concerned,
If the universe is non-deterministic and God is not independent of time, then there are good reasons to think he would not be omniscient.

and if God exists then free will exists as otherwise we have a creator God judging people for things they have no control over, which if not exactly a contradiction would be bizarre.
A creator God judging people is bizarre whether or not free will exists.

.... free will, in the metaphysical sense...
What do you mean by that?

So my feeling is that there is such a thing as free will and it is more than just "freedom to act", but that the concept is not properly defined.
Can it at least be described better than a vague reference to something other than 'freedom to act' or 'randomness'?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
So why doesn't he quit mucking about and just do a quick sort of all the souls who have lived or ever will live and put them in their pre-determined places
for eternity?

But doing so without waiting for time to pass would make your future actions non-existent thus removing the need to place you in the naughty chair.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I'm not claiming that either omniscience or free will exist, merely that they do not contradict one another. However, if God exists then I see no reason why he shouldn't be omniscient at least as far as this universe is concerned, and if God exists then free will exists as otherwise we have a creator God judging people for things they have no control over, ...[text shortened]... s free will and it is more than just "freedom to act", but that the concept is not properly defined.

Originally posted by DeepThought
"if God exists then free will exists as otherwise we have a creator God judging people for things they have no control over."

Please elaborate. Thanks. By the way, God gave the angelic creation "freewill" in eternity past prior to His creation of man.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am not sure why you copy/pasted the definition of 'preset'. Were you under the impression that I do not speak English very well?

Now let me do one for you:
[quote]inanimate
ɪnˈanɪmət/Submit
adjective
not alive.
"inanimate objects like stones"
showing no sign of life; lifeless.
"he was completely inanimate and it was difficult to see if he was ...[text shortened]... answering the second part.


But whatever my answer may be, it doesn't resolve your dilemma.

Thank you.

Originally posted by twhitehead
But doing so without waiting for time to pass would make your future actions non-existent thus removing the need to place you in the naughty chair.

So he wouldn't have to put us in the naughty chair!
Thus saving us all.
Nice goddie ... good goddie. Roll over and I'll tickle your tum.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Thank you.

-deleted-

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by DeepThought
"if God exists then free will exists as otherwise we have a creator God judging people for things they have no control over."

Please elaborate. Thanks. By the way, God gave the angelic creation "freewill" in eternity past prior to His creation of man.

Footnote: DeepThought, since your interest in God's Omniscience and human freewill is genuine, I thought reference to an accurate explanation in context by Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom's Bible Ministries during 2002 [in another utility thread] might be relevant to our discussion without intruding on "Pascal's Wager Revisited". (Part 1) Thread 162611 (Page 15)

Originally posted by twhitehead
Whether or not they contradict each other depends on how you define the two terms.

[b]However, if God exists then I see no reason why he shouldn't be omniscient at least as far as this universe is concerned,
If the universe is non-deterministic and God is not independent of time, then there are good reasons to think he would not be omniscient.

...[text shortened]... escribed better than a vague reference to something other than 'freedom to act' or 'randomness'?[/b]

I'm off my field and although I've thought about this my knowledge is pretty limited. If knowledge is justified belief that is true then my knowledge about this is pseudo-knowledge, with pseudo-knowledge defined as justified belief that is on Wikipedia. With that caveat, I think the terms I've used are fairly standard. It is not possible to derive a contradiction between free will, however it is defined, and omniscience. It does not matter whether either exist for this. This is a matter of logic, not of physics or biology.

Consider the sentence: "If I am a giraffe then Mars is green.". It's ridiculous, but logically perfectly sound as one cannot draw a false conclusion from it. I'm not a giraffe so you cannot deduce anything about Mars. Mars is red so you can, correctly, use modus tollens to conclude that I am not a giraffe. What I'm trying to illustrate is that the statement "There is no contradiction between omniscience and free will" can be true without either free will or omniscience existing or free will being precisely defined. Essentially the argument is that omniscience is not the same as predestination.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I'm off my field and although I've thought about this my knowledge is pretty limited. If knowledge is justified belief that is true then my knowledge about this is pseudo-knowledge, with pseudo-knowledge defined as justified belief that is on Wikipedia. With that caveat, I think the terms I've used are fairly standard. It is not possible to derive a c ...[text shortened]... cisely defined. Essentially the argument is that omniscience is not the same as predestination.

Consider the sentence: "If I am a giraffe then Mars is green.". It's ridiculous, but logically
perfectly sound as one cannot draw a false conclusion from it. I'm not a giraffe so you cannot
deduce anything about Mars. ...

I cannot agree.

"If A THEN B" only holds IF, and ONLY IF, A actually entails B.

As your being a giraffe does not entail Mars being green, then what you have written is a
non-sequitur and you have committed a formal logical fallacy.

Mars is red so you can, correctly, use modus tollens to conclude that I am not a giraffe.

Again, this only follows if A actually entails B.

Given that A does not entail B, the fact that we observe ~B says absolutely nothing about A.

Originally posted by DeepThought
This was thrashed out by some heavyweight philosophers, all of whom are atheists, in a couple of threads about four years ago. See threads Thread 130680, Thread 133337, and it was mentioned in a recent thread Thread 161771 which gives a quicker summary.

Essentially the argument is that there is no contradicti ...[text shortened]... iscience. I've just noticed you made the opening post in one of those threads and may remember.

I suppose my problem here is in how I interpret what a given theist is telling me, I have started thread: Thread 163055 with the hope that with sufficient explanation of my error I will be corrected.

Originally posted by DeepThought
With that caveat, I think the terms I've used are fairly standard.

The terms have a wide range of meaning. They do not have a standard meaning as such that is specific enough.

It does not matter whether either exist for this. This is a matter of logic, not of physics or biology.
The argument in question may have been purely a matter of logic, but that doesn't mean that physics doesn't get involved. Just because free will and omnipotence are not logically exclusive, doesn't mean they aren't exclusive in our universe where certain other facts prevail.

The real difficulty in this issue is the question of whether or not the future can be said to exist, or whether or not one single future can be said to be going to be actualized. (The same of course may be asked about the past, but thats a discussion for another day).
If one says that there are two possible futures, but only one will be actualized, then what does it even mean to say that two are possible?

Originally posted by googlefudge

Consider the sentence: "If I am a giraffe then Mars is green.". It's ridiculous, but logically
perfectly sound as one cannot draw a false conclusion from it. I'm not a giraffe so you cannot
deduce anything about Mars. ...

I cannot agree.

"If A [b]THEN B" only holds IF, and ONLY IF, A actually entails B.

As your being a g ...[text shortened]...

Given that A does not entail B, the fact that we observe ~B says absolutely nothing about A.[/b]

No, in classical logic the "if" is called the "material conditional" [1]. What you are describing is a "strict conditional" which is can be defined using modal operators [2]. However, such operators are not defined within classical logic. So the statement is formally correct. It's just not much use.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_conditional