Taboo Topics (Heavily moderated)

[Galaxy Man]

Omniscience is just watching. A being who is only omniscient, and cannot influence events at all, doesn't matter. Even if it knows everything there could ever be to know and then some, it has no effect on the choices you make.

If there is only one possible outcome, it doesn't matter that someone knows what the outcome is, it's going to happen anyways.

If there's multiple outcomes, it dosen't matter if someone knows what every single outcome is, because they've all happened, and what actually matters is which one that you* are in.

*you as in the entity who is in the specific timeline that you are currently experiencing, there are multiple "you"s in infinite timelines but the only one who actually matters to you is you, the other ones are basically separate people for all intents and purposes.

[TheStranger]

No, I got that, but if omniscience is possible, then there is still an entity that KNOWS what option you will choose, even if it doesnt decide it for you. That removes the aspect of free will. Like you said, if there's only one timeline, then there is no choice, there is only one possible solution. If there's multiple timelines, the *you* in each timeline doesnt have free will either, since the entity will know ahead of time what you will choose. As long as knowledge exists ahead of time what you will choose, free will doesnt exist, and never did.

[Doormaster]

Knowing about it doesn't mean you make it happen.

Not directly no, but it does mean that there is a definite thing that he knows we are going to do, which is arguably even more important.

Let's say that I am standing at the end of a hallway and I have the choice to go left or right. God knows I will go right. If that is the case, then it seems to me it is already decided. There is no possible way for me to turn left, since that would contradict the omniscience of God. It might seem to us that there is a choice between going left or right since we are limited to our own non-omniscient view of the world

To me, free will is the ability to choose between one thing or another. If God already knows which thing we are going to do, in what way is that a choice?

(it probably doesn't help that I don't actually believe in free will even without a god involved haha)

[Galaxy Man]

No, I got that, but if omniscience is possible, then there is still an entity that KNOWS what option you will choose, even if it doesnt decide it for you. That removes the aspect of free will. Like you said, if there's only one timeline, then there is no choice, there is only one possible solution. If there's multiple timelines, the *you* in each timeline doesnt have free will either, since the entity will know ahead of time what you will choose. As long as knowledge exists ahead of time what you will choose, free will doesnt exist, and never did.

This doesn't happen because the being is omniscient.

In a fixed timeline, where all events are predetermined, then it doesn't matter at all if someone knows what is going to happen because it's going to happen anyways. Even if the knowledge didn't exist, it would still happen.

It'd be a lot like watching a movie, actually. You can watch it, but you can't change it. Regardless of if you've seen it before, the same things are going to happen. Even if you know every single detail, it doesn't matter what you know because it's going to happen anyways.

In a multiple timeline, it doesn't matter still, because the entity does not know what you chose. The entity doesn't care, and it's not getting that information because it's not technically information that exists. There are a billion of you, in a billion timelines. All who made different choices. All of them are equally you in a different path. The entity has no way of going "oh yes THIS incarnation of this person will do this this and this" because to them you've done everything you could ever possibly do already. There is no alpha you, no main person, every timeline with you has the same you in a different scenario.

The difference between you is obvious, one is your consciousness, and the others are not. They're all the exact same person, but one just happens to be the one that you are.

In that scenario, the god has no way of predicting who will do what at what time in a very factual matter. According to it, you made multiple choices and had multiple actions in the exact same timeframe and then they all split off into different yous who did all other things and it goes on and on forever.

Now because it can see these things, doesn't mean that it seeing them ends free will. It means free will wouldn't exist with or without the god, because there's always a timeline where you did that certain thing. Now, it's much more free a will than a completely static timeline, but free will is not a concept that exists regardless of if there's a god or not.

[YCobb]

Stranger's point is akin to Schroedinger's Cat and certain aspects of quantum physics. Observing a situation changes it fundamentally - in terms of the cat, it's more theoretical; in quantum physics, it's a literal consequence of whatever mechanism you observe a situation by.

Treating omniscience like a guy looking at a cat, it removes ambiguity. Where it could be argued that no specific assumption is true before observation, there's a definite truth post-observation. Same thing with free will - it crumbles as soon as there is a definite future.
If you try to argue this.... I don't really know what to say? You'd be getting free will mixed up with cognizance and that'd be silly.

Treating omniscience like a guy looking at a fucktiny particle, it gets less clear and honestly pretty irrelevant so I'm not getting into that. It boils down to something like 'reading a mind would have to in some way interact with the contents of the mind.'

EDIT: No yeah GM, reading back over your posts you're definitely getting free will mixed up with cognizance. Awareness and cognizance are very different from free will.

[Kamak]

Stranger's point is akin to Schroedinger's Cat and certain aspects of quantum physics. Observing a situation changes it fundamentally - in terms of the cat, it's more theoretical; in quantum physics, it's a literal consequence of whatever mechanism you observe a situation by.

Except when it comes to omniscience, there is no observation because the results are already known without having to observe it. The cat is not assumed to be both alive and dead, it is KNOWN to be both (assuming multiple universes and such) ever since existence came about.

In this case, God isn't determining the state of the universe by observing it. The universe itself is already known in its entirety by God the instant it comes into being. There is no observation on the matter, all outcomes exist and are known to exist without a fundamental need to double check.

In other words, it's as if someone shuffled a deck while you were blindfolded and facing the opposite way in a completely different room, and you knew what order the cards were in. Knowing it doesn't affect the game that the people at the table are playing, and they might have guesses as to the order of the cards and the likelihood that the card they need will crop up next, but only you truly have the knowledge of the contents of the deck, and your knowledge of it does not affect the results, because you are wholly removed from the situation.

If God were to interact with the universe, observe it, make changes, then yes, he would fundamentally alter the universe. Divine intervention would cause that moment in time to be forced to go a certain way, and at that point, free will is completely stripped from that branching point in the timeline.

The difference here, that many people get hung up on is that omniscience and omnipotence DOES NOT mean that God is obligated or willing to fix the problems that people experience. Any intervention of his would change the universe, and in all likelihood, could make things worse. Besides which, if timelines do branch like we would suppose they would given the existence of free will, then why would God necessarily... care if things went badly for you in this timeline? In another timeline, things went great for you, or you made the right decision that you didn't regret. Or maybe in another timeline you made a horrible mistake and God didn't come on your behalf to fix that.

In this case, your existence fits a set of standards that have to exist because it's a possibility caused by the choices of you and others. You make this bad choice in your life because there's another you who did the opposite, and without either of you, there was no choice to begin with.

Also, as an addendum, I would like to say, isn't it also possible that if there are an infinite number of timelines that cover every concievable choice combination that any person, groups of people, or people combined in the universe can make, isn't it also possible for the same exact timelines to repeat, like a movie, infinitely because the you or the me or the anyone in that timeline made the same choices that you/me/anyone in this timeline has made? If there are an infinite number of this timeline, doesn't that mean the you in any timeline truly has the free will to make their own choices, even if it completely runs parallel with another timeline?

[YCobb]

I have to disagree - knowledge necessarily implies observation. An omniscient being may not point eyes at your socks to know they're under your bed, but A] there would likely be some mechanism by which it happened but is above our plane of understanding and B] regardless, the fact's simply being known alone is enough to render certainty.

[SaintCrazy]

Also, as an addendum, I would like to say, isn't it also possible that if there are an infinite number of timelines that cover every concievable choice combination that any person, groups of people, or people combined in the universe can make, isn't it also possible for the same exact timelines to repeat, like a movie, infinitely because the you or the me or the anyone in that timeline made the same choices that you/me/anyone in this timeline has made? If there are an infinite number of this timeline, doesn't that mean the you in any timeline truly has the free will to make their own choices, even if it completely runs parallel with another timeline?

I read a book like this once, pretty interesting idea. The main character could see the future, but he wouldn't see a single future, he saw a variety of different outcomes all at once.

Basically, suppose God is inherently omniscient by knowing all possible outcomes of every possible decision a person could ever make ever. Each decision, each combination of decisions, splits the timeline into many different possibilities. God may be omniscient in the sense that he is able to see every branch, even though the combinations would be basically infinite. Heck, you could even support the idea of truly "random" events (like, at the quantum level) splitting into their own possible timelines. God may not "predict" the outcome, but he would be able to see each possible outcome. Maybe you could extend this into a theory of parallel universes, where in total, all possible outcomes of an event come to pass, they're just in different timelines. So naturally if God knows all the outcomes he will have predicted the outcome correctly by knowing that they all came to pass.

I don't think this version of omniscience is quite "all"-knowing by the strictest, but its as absolute as its going to get.

[Riku]

(it probably doesn't help that I don't actually believe in free will even without a god involved haha)

Of the mind that things are all going to happen a certain way, we just experience it as choices?

[Galaxy Man]

I have to disagree - knowledge necessarily implies observation. An omniscient being may not point eyes at your socks to know they're under your bed, but A] there would likely be some mechanism by which it happened but is above our plane of understanding and B] regardless, the fact's simply being known alone is enough to render certainty.

An omniscient being does not require observation. They do not need it. They could be blind, deaf, and dumb, but still know everything. It's not observation, it's just knowledge. You may never have seen a nuclear explosion, but you know that you'd die if you were in one. It's the same principal, knowledge without any source. A being who is omniscient by nature would be born and would constantly exist in a state of knowing all things.

This does not affect or alter the things at all. Saying that a choice could be either way in a realm where the timeline is strict and stable is just honestly a stupid thing to say. In that universe, everything would be the same regardless of if someone looked at it or not. There is no either way, there was no choice to be made, there is just what happened.

And then in a branching universe, it continues to not matter, because you've done everything you could ever have done already. Time to us is a series of cause and effect but to a being who knows and understands everything, it's just a thing. To it, you exist. You do not exist along a linear path, you just exist, and every choice you could ever make you already have and have not simultaneously.

It's an odd thing to wrap your head around, but in separate timelines you're still you. There's a timeline where I didn't put this sentience into this post. Or I didn't make one spelling error. These tiny things have already split into hundreds of billions of an infinite number of different universes, but all of them would be me. To a being who knows all and is watching, all it sees is a point where there is a giant branching path, and that point is part of another branching path, which is part of another branching path, all the way until the beginning of time or before. These are not really separate selves. They are all me, still. They're points where I made a choice, or something happened to me, or something happened in a completely different spot in the universe itself and made the new branch.

The omniscient being would just see me in a whole bunch of different spots. Maybe he could go "oh this one did this this and this" but in the end there are so many paths that have all already been taken why bother.

If time is a singular thing, going straight forward with no branches, then what is observed would have come to be without observation.

If time is a many fingered thing, with infinite possibility creating infinite timelines, then what is observed would be every choice and every experience to ever exist and the observation doesn't matter because everything has already happened. bodaciously, in every sense of the word, everything.

To compare it to Schrodinger's Cat, in a fixed timeline, the god would know the cat is dead/alive, and even if he did not, it would still be the same result.
In a branching timeline, the god would see the cat as dead and alive at the same time and see the timelines that came of both, so there would be no "right" result that it could observe.

[Zanoushe]

Man, I find this discussion hilarious seeing as I'm currently watching Steins;Gate.

[Doormaster]

(it probably doesn't help that I don't actually believe in free will even without a god involved haha)

Of the mind that things are all going to happen a certain way, we just experience it as choices?

Sort of. I'm a pretty firm believer in Smart's Dilemma, which states that things are either predetermined or they are random, neither of which leaves room for our conception of free will. I'm leaning towards the predetermined side, but there are some strong arguments for randomness as well.

[Galaxy Man]

Honestly

I figure it doesn't fucking matter. Even if everything is predetermined and set in stone, then that doesn't mean diddly shit to me. Whatever, that's not something I can change so why worry.
And if there's an infinite amount of potentials, then whatever that still doesn't matter to me.

What matters is what I'm living right now, because I don't know the future, I don't know how time works, so why make it a focus of my life?

[YCobb]

I have to disagree - knowledge necessarily implies observation. An omniscient being may not point eyes at your socks to know they're under your bed, but A] there would likely be some mechanism by which it happened but is above our plane of understanding and B] regardless, the fact's simply being known alone is enough to render certainty.

An omniscient being does not require observation. They do not need it. They could be blind, deaf, and dumb, but still know everything. It's not observation, it's just knowledge.

Uh, yeah. There are all things I've already said.
I think you're misunderstanding the scope of 'observation' and its meaning in this context. If it is known or acknowledged or in any way recognized, it is observed.

[Galaxy Man]

I have to disagree - knowledge necessarily implies observation. An omniscient being may not point eyes at your socks to know they're under your bed, but A] there would likely be some mechanism by which it happened but is above our plane of understanding and B] regardless, the fact's simply being known alone is enough to render certainty.

An omniscient being does not require observation. They do not need it. They could be blind, deaf, and dumb, but still know everything. It's not observation, it's just knowledge.

Uh, yeah. There are all things I've already said.
I think you're misunderstanding the scope of 'observation' and its meaning in this context. If it is known or acknowledged or in any way recognized, it is observed.

Observation is experiencing an event through human senses, so, no, having knowledge of something before experiencing it is not observation.

Like I've said before also, it doesn't matter if it's observed. Either it's predetermined and not changed by the observation, or there's multiple possible events that are all happening.

There's also the fatal flaw of Schrodinger's Cat's normal interpretation. There is no wave function to collapse when the box is opened, the cat is either alive or dead, and saying it exists in some other state in-between both until observed is beaten down pretty solidly by common logic. What would actually collapse the function is any event happening at all. There would need to be no observation, nobody would have to look and be sure. The second the geiger counter detected radiation the cat would be dead, the second it did not, the cat would be still alive. The thought experiment isn't saying that something doesn't happen until observed, it's a question as to when the change actually occurs, what is the exact point where reality comes to a conclusion on if this cat will live or die?

So any form of observation, or knowledge of events, wouldn't change the conclusion even in a fixed universe. The only difference an omniscient being would have, is they would be able to see and understand the point where reality "makes a decision" down to it's basest concepts.