Taboo Topics (Heavily moderated)

[Madican]

Yes I do. Omniscience allows the knowledge of what everyone will do, but they're still the ones who make the choice to do whatever it is.

"Reading" someone's move is already a common thing in strategy; going off of the relevant information to predict with high accuracy what move someone will make. Someone with omniscience has infinitely more information than that, they would know every detail about everything, who's to say they can't use it to perform divine levels of "reading?"

[TheStranger]

Not really, omniscience also means you know what WILL inevitably happen, removing free will from the equation.

[Doormaster]

I don't quite see how you can reconcile that. If an all-knowing God knows for certain what I am going to do, how can you say that I had a choice to do anything else? Doing so would make the omniscient being incorrect, which is by definition impossible.

If what you say is true and this being is using massive amounts of information to make "reads" of moves, I don't really see how that helps your case for free will. It really seems more like an argument for determinism i.e. there is actually only one possible "choice" in any given situation, which we would be able to predict if given enough prior information.

[Madican]

I honestly don't see how omniscience counts out free will. I already said that someone with omniscience knows all the moves that will be played, but the one making them is still doing so out of their own choices.

[Galaxy Man]

Not really, omniscience also means you know what WILL inevitably happen, removing free will from the equation.

There's two types, inherent, and total omniscience.

Inherent basically means that you could know everything, but you choose to only know certain things. The potential is there, but it's limited.
Total means you know everything, and you always know everything.

Now, if God is totally omniscient. He would know everything always no matter what, yes.

But a inherently omniscient God wouldn't necessarily. He could easily limit his knowledge, purposefully, of future events.

Even if either is true, what would limit free will is not the knowledge of these events, but ourselves.

The idea of free will, true free will, is something that relies totally on the idea that at any time, anywhere, you could do any thing. This is an inherently false thing, because nobody can do so. Free will becomes an even more limited idea when you realize that if there is only one timeline, then there is no choice to be made at all. Now, yes, you make choices every day and you consider them part of your ability to have free will, but these choices are just a facet of your personality. The being that you are, built up over time. Anything you do will be part of that character, no matter how random or unlike you, it can easily be traced backwards to a facet of your being.

However, considering there are multiple timelines, you now have choice. Note that these choices are still part of you, something that can be mathematically determined, but now there's a possible split. A place where it could be entirely possible for you to do a number of things, and all of which branch out and become a new universe, a new timeline, based on that decision alone.

So, when there is no true free will, does it matter if God is limiting it? In a fixed timeline, where there's only one outcome of events, God matters not at all. Even if he knows things are going to happen he's powerless to do anything because that's how they have to happen.

In a branching timeline, God could know any number of billions of thousands of things that could happen in every atom of every molecule of everything. But, even then, he will never predict what you will do. Sure, he can predict the actions and the outcomes, but when you reach that point, he will never be able to figure out which one you will take, because to him you've taken all of them.

So really, who gives a fuck if knowing the future means you don't have a choice. You hardly have a real, true choice even if he does.

[TheStranger]

I honestly don't see how omniscience counts out free will. I already said that someone with omniscience knows all the moves that will be played, but the one making them is still doing so out of their own choices.

No theyre not. The choices already exists, and the divine being will know ahead of time which choices will be made and what the outcome will be.

[Riku]

I honestly don't see how omniscience counts out free will. I already said that someone with omniscience knows all the moves that will be played, but the one making them is still doing so out of their own choices.

No theyre not. The choices already exists, and the divine being will know ahead of time which choices will be made and what the outcome will be.

I think you just said what he was saying.

[TheStranger]

No, he said that the person with said will would make the choices themselves, I say that all the options are false flags, since the divine being would know from the start that only one path was truly possible.

[Galaxy Man]

No, he said that the person with said will would make the choices themselves, I say that all the options are false flags, since the divine being would know from the start that only one path was truly possible.

If there's only one timeline. And in that case it doesn't actually matter if God can see it anyways, does it? You already made the choice regardless if someone could see it. That's how a singular timeline works.

[TheStranger]

No, he said that the person with said will would make the choices themselves, I say that all the options are false flags, since the divine being would know from the start that only one path was truly possible.

If there's only one timeline. And in that case it doesn't actually matter if God can see it anyways, does it? You already made the choice regardless if someone could see it. That's how a singular timeline works.

Doesnt matter. If a God is truly omniscient, he will know what choice you make, in every single timeline, no matter what the options are. If not, he's not omniscient.

[Riku]

If there are multiple timelines, then there are choices somewhere in there. That would be what makes the branches (or at least the more recent ones). An omniscient being has no effect on that.
If there's only one timeline, then there are predetermined choices/events that are acknowledged and decided upon in real time by the people involved, and are irrelevant before they have been decided upon, effectively making them choices as far as people are concerned. An omniscient being has no effect on that.

Bear in mind that we're discussing Omniscience, not Omnipotence.

[TheStranger]

...okay, am I just operating under some other sort of defintion of omniscience here? If you know all that was, is, and can be, you know those things, PERIOD. Thus, you will also know the outcome of any option given, and what option will be chosen.

[Riku]

Knowing about it doesn't mean you make it happen. It just means you're aware of it. Just like I'm aware that you get upset at pretty much any discussion of religion. It doesn't mean that my knowledge of that will force you to react that way. It just means that I'm aware that you'll choose to react that way.


This isn't intended to be a dig at you, by the way. Just observing the way you've reacted to any other religion-based conversation I've seen you participate in.

(I have to clock back on from my lunch now, so I'm stepping out for a few hours. If I reply to anything, it's going to be way late.)

[Galaxy Man]

Stranger I'm starting to really think you're not really reading what I, nor anyone else is saying because these are questions that were already answered pretty clearly.

[TheStranger]

Im reading them, but apparently not comprehending them correctly?