yet another time thread!

Let's say there is a 5th dimension to existence and you are suddenly pulled out of time/space ( 2+3 +4th dimension) and was able to look at time kinda sideways from your 5th dimension perspective.

Instead of seeing things in terms of looking "along" a timeline (like a tube or tunnel?) you would be looking at all of it simultaneously. From this angle imagine time looks like a 3d object does to us , so to speak.

Now , and this requires some thought , imagine that within the time you are looking at free will actually exists , now imagine that all choices are determined , now imagine free choices are possible again.

Ok , so what has changed? If free will exists then are you suddenly not going to able to see time from your 5th dimension? If hard determinism is true would you not still just see time as a series of events?

Is free will existing in time/space going to prevent you from knowing these events/choices? If someone in 2012 is making a free choice will your view of it be obscured somehow , or would the mere fact of being in a 5th dimension mean that it was not a problem for you?

I posit that if this were possible then the whole of time would just be laid out in front of you and if within it a free choice was being made it would still be just as visible to you as it would if it were determined. I see no reason to think that you would be prevented from knowing a free choice at any point along the timeline.

Therefore , theoretically a being who existed in a 5th dimension would be bound to know the outcome of any free choice in time . How could such a being not know ? Such a being could spend an eternity looking at it as well.

Let's say that in the timeline you are looking at an uncertain quantum event is occurring in 2023. You see the outcome of this event occuring the same as you are also watching the fall of Rome. You see the nanosecond just before the quantum event and you also see the outcome a nanosecond just after but you see these events NOT sequentially but simultaneously. You are not in time , but outside it in a 5th dimension remember. Now , does the fact that you know the future outcome of a quantum event prove that the event must have not been uncertain at all but actually pre determined and inevitable?

I don't think it can do because whatever the outcome was you were always bound to know it . You have no need in a 5th dimension for an event to be determined in order to know it's future , you would know the outcome of all uncertain quantum events. You could not NOT know.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Let's say there is a 5th dimension to existence and you are suddenly pulled out of time/space ( 2+3 +4th dimension) and was able to look at time kinda sideways from your 5th dimension perspective.

Instead of seeing things in terms of looking "along" a timeline (like a tube or tunnel?) you would be looking at all of it simultaneously. From this angle ...[text shortened]... ture , you would know the outcome of all uncertain quantum events. You could not NOT know.

If I understand this correctly, then, since God knows the end from the beginning, free will isn't negated just because He knows in advance what we will choose. Hence, Eph. 1:5 "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will," is not, as the Calvinist would interpret it, a violation of our free will, but instead, God, knowing we would choose to believe, planned something for us to believe in and be "conformed" to.

What do you think?

Originally posted by josephw
If I understand this correctly, then, since God knows the end from the beginning, free will isn't negated just because He knows in advance what we will choose. Hence, Eph. 1:5 "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will," is not, as the Calvinist would interpret it, a violatio ...[text shortened]... elieve, planned something for us to believe in and be "conformed" to.

What do you think?

I think he pre-destined that all of us should be adopted and that was always his plan for his creations from the start but I don't think it applies to individuals or individual choice.

how can free will still exist if there is only one possible time line? i am not asking, i am telling you that you made a mistake in logic.

if you hold god's existence as true AND
if you hold free will as true then


either you have only one time line as a string with one end in the beginning and one end in the present which means God has no knowledge of the future and thus he exists in this timeline(which will assume that god has a beginning and he couldnt possibly have created the universe) or multiple timelines branching each moment in time in infinite other timelines and God has knowledge of all of them(and exists outside of them).

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
how can free will still exist if there is only one possible time line? i am not asking, i am telling you that you made a mistake in logic.

if you hold god's existence as true AND
if you hold free will as true then


either you have only one time line as a string with one end in the beginning and one end in the present which means God has no knowled ...[text shortened]... e in infinite other timelines and God has knowledge of all of them(and exists outside of them).

I do not say that there is only one possible timeline . I say that there are many potentially possible timelines. Free will dictates that your personal timeline has potentially different futures and has the potential to go one way or the other. However, (and here's the lightbulb moment) ...whatever timeline you choose to become real will exist and the other timelines will never exist at all. You can make many choices but one thing is for certain , you can only make ONE choice NOT two. You can only live one life and one life only. Whatever your future is to be there will only be one of them. You can have a billion choices available but one thing cannot change , you can only choose one of them.

Free will and determinism are indistinguishable by trying to use the fact that there is only one life you can live . Why? Because the fact there is only one timeline proves nothing , it just proves that there is only one life you can live (NOT 2) but it doesn't prove that this was the only possible life you can live . It only proves that it's only possible to live one life.

if there was a being in the 5th dimension who can see as you say, he would first be concerned for his own safety (if it can affect him) and what he could do about it if it did negatively/postively affect him.

if he told someone what will happen especially on a grand scale, like the assassination of a important person, people will naively determine that that person was somehow involved in the event.

if that person was hurt tryin to save that important person, then it will be more likely to be believed that that person acted in the best interest of that character.

i would keep important events to myself because if we could see int this type of way, people who cant wont understand!