does free will exist?

[xlepermessiahxx]

Alright I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I wanted to know what others thought of it. It's just a quick question/scenario, and it's completely hypothetical. Suppose god exists, suppose also that god is both omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). If god created human beings, knowing everything each of us would do individually if he did, does free will exist? For example, say god is creating a human, he can create any person he wants, and he knows everything that they will do if he creates them. Upon choosing which humans to create, he has essentially determined which choices will be made by allowing the person who makes those choices to come into existence instead of another person. I feel like this could have been written better, sorry if it doesn't make sense. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with this and why. Also, if you need clarification just let me know and I will do my best.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

If an omnipotent all knowing being created us with a plan in mind and no matter what happens is still all according to his plan then no free will does not exist.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

I assume (correct me if I am wrong) you are asking about this in the context of a 'plan'? I.e. that this omniscient god has outcomes that are desired? There are two general ways it could be accomplished:

Outcome achievement through Intervention
-Pretty simple, create something and nudge it towards your desired outcomes; act to alter the surroundings or directly on the entity itself. The former is bounded free will and the later is not free will.

Outcome achievement through Design
-More complex; this approach is basically predicts outcomes of the potential creation and only actually create it if the outcomes suit your objectives. In such a case free will can exist, however only in a scenario that leads to the outcomes desired (otherwise they would not have been created in the first place)

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Whether there was a plan or not, how would we ever know? It's not as if this god talks to us. Except there was that one guy on the subway....

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Whether the plan was created consciously or not, nature has a plan, there's a way it's flowing. There's no freewill in the events, only freewill in whether we like the event or not.

 

[Skwim]

Alright I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I wanted to know what others thought of it. It's just a quick question/scenario, and it's completely hypothetical. Suppose god exists, suppose also that god is both omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). If god created human beings, knowing everything each of us would do individually if he did, does free will exist? For example, say god is creating a human, he can create any person he wants, and he knows everything that they will do if he creates them. Upon choosing which humans to create, he has essentially determined which choices will be made by allowing the person who makes those choices to come into existence instead of another person. I feel like this could have been written better, sorry if it doesn't make sense. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with this and why. Also, if you need clarification just let me know and I will do my best.

What you're asking is a very old question that's been addressed, re-addressed, and re-re-addressed. Philosophically, it's often called the foreknowledge and freewill issue. Here's a synopsis from Wikipedia.

"The argument from free will (also called the paradox of free will, or theological fatalism) contends that omniscience and free will are incompatible, and that any conception of God that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory.The argument may focus on the incoherence of people having free will, or else God himself having free will. These arguments are deeply concerned with the implications of predestination, and often seem to echo the standard argument against free will."
​

In brief, the arguments almost always conclude that omniscience and freewill are incompatible.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Alright I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I wanted to know what others thought of it. It's just a quick question/scenario, and it's completely hypothetical. Suppose god exists, suppose also that god is both omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). If god created human beings, knowing everything each of us would do individually if he did, does free will exist?

How does this differ from fatalism implied by treating propositions about the future as truth-bearing (i.e., as propositions)?

Aristotle illustrated the issue with a sea battle, which in Greek is one word and which in Greece of that time was a common enough experience, but which rather dated now. Instead we’ll go with rain. Like Aristotle, philosophers and others even unto today deal with “truth-bearing” statements called propositions. Thus, “is it raining?” is not truth-bearing, but “it’s raining” is. If I say “don’t go outside, it’s raining” and you go outside to find that there’s not a cloud in the sky nor a drop of water falling from it, then what I said was false. But what if you had asked about the weather report? And what if I had answered “It’s going to rain tomorrow”? This appears to be a proposition, in that although we can’t determine whether or not it’s true right after it is said, we can do so the next day.

And because philosophers are lazy, borderline psychotic, obsessive, and generally useless to society, for centuries reasonable people have tried to keep them confined to universities or similar institution, so that they could spend hundreds of years arguing about how exactly “it’s going to rain tomorrow” is a “truth-bearing” statement (proposition), and whether the answer to that question entails fatalism.

he has essentially determined which choices

You don't need god for this kind of argument. It follows from certain ontological assessments of spacetime:

time-like seperations and space-like seperations as independent of one another belong to a different era of physics, and have for a century. We all have a local spacetime frame of reference. Everyone on earth is so close that the difference is too small to notice. So all that 4th dimensional geometry doesn't really matter for us, but it becomes something else entirely for Le Petit Prince out on some planet lightyears away form us. Because now the spatial seperation is so great that small angular movements in space translate into a completely different time-like frame of reference relative to us.

Put simply, if a sentient being is far enough away, their movements in space make their experience of time easily shift forward a thousand years relative to us, and then back. At one moment, everything we will ever do is ancient history, and the next moment it has never happened.

 

[LuisDantas]

No, Free Will apparently either does not exist, or is a far more subtle concept than what I can understand. And has been very unfortunately named, too.

 

[rusra02]

Alright I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I wanted to know what others thought of it. It's just a quick question/scenario, and it's completely hypothetical. Suppose god exists, suppose also that god is both omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). If god created human beings, knowing everything each of us would do individually if he did, does free will exist? For example, say god is creating a human, he can create any person he wants, and he knows everything that they will do if he creates them. Upon choosing which humans to create, he has essentially determined which choices will be made by allowing the person who makes those choices to come into existence instead of another person. I feel like this could have been written better, sorry if it doesn't make sense. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with this and why. Also, if you need clarification just let me know and I will do my best.

The Bible clearly teaches, IMO, that God gives the gift of choice or free will to all his intelligent creatures. (Deuteronomy 30:19,20) While Jehovah God can foreknow the future, he does not exercise this ability constantly. For one example, God sent two angels to investigate bad reports about Sodom. As Genesis 18:21 says;" that I may see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it."
Obviously God did not choose to foreknow the outcome for those cities.
A person who can turn cartwheels or sing opera chooses when to exercise that ability. Thus, God does not predestine individual's futures, but dignifies them with the ability to make moral choices that determines their future.

 

[idav]

I assume (correct me if I am wrong) you are asking about this in the context of a 'plan'? I.e. that this omniscient god has outcomes that are desired? There are two general ways it could be accomplished:

Outcome achievement through Intervention
-Pretty simple, create something and nudge it towards your desired outcomes; act to alter the surroundings or directly on the entity itself. The former is bounded free will and the later is not free will.

Outcome achievement through Design
-More complex; this approach is basically predicts outcomes of the potential creation and only actually create it if the outcomes suit your objectives. In such a case free will can exist, however only in a scenario that leads to the outcomes desired (otherwise they would not have been created in the first place)

This is a good summation. God intervening directly or indirectly. Say God did give us the power to do other than designed he would still know it through omniscience but omniscince would entail multiple world scenarios since they are possible through omnipotence.

 

[Skwim]

The Bible clearly teaches, IMO, that God gives the gift of choice or free will to all his intelligent creatures. (Deuteronomy 30:19,20) While Jehovah God can foreknow the future, he does not exercise this ability constantly. For one example, God sent two angels to investigate bad reports about Sodom. As Genesis 18:21 says;" that I may see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it."

Clearly then, god is not omniscient.

Obviously God did not choose to foreknow the outcome for those cities.

Sorry, but the definition of omniscience is not one of an ability to know, but a state of already knowing.

om·nis·cience
[om-nish-uhns] Show IPA
noun
1.
the quality or state of being omniscient.
2.
infinite knowledge.
_________________________________________

omniscient (ɒmˈnɪsɪənt)

— adj
1. having infinite knowledge or understanding

_________________________________________

Definition of OMNISCIENT
1
: having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight
2
: possessed of universal or complete knowledge
​

God does not predestine individual's futures, but dignifies them with the ability to make moral choices that determines their future.

"Dignifies them"?? What's so dignifying about making moral "choices"?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Thus, God does not predestine individual's futures, but dignifies them with the ability to make moral choices that determines their future.

Would it be dignified to present you with two buttons, one of which will shoot flames at you and the other money, just to see which one you would press?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

What you're asking is a very old question that's been addressed, re-addressed, and re-re-addressed.

Yeah, but never on this forum, right? It's not like someone could search through and find a thread (let alone multiple threads) on the subject.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Yeah, but never on this forum, right? It's not like someone could search through and find a thread (let alone multiple threads) on the subject.

Actually... sorry to tell you but yes. It has been addressed time and time again on this forum, many times with the same title as this thread.

 

[Sunstone]

For free will to exist, the will would necessarily need to be uncaused. But that seems preposterous since there is no body of science that indicates anything in the brain is uncaused. So, either free will is not of the human brain -- which would be unprovable -- or it is most likely non-existent.

Personally, I think it is a Medieval myth whose time has expired.

 

[Penumbra]

Free will is not a concept I've ever seen defined in a way that I agree is logically consistent and true. It's not an idea I think is valid with or without the inclusion of a deity.

Clearly then, god is not omniscient.

The Israelite deity experienced power creep. It tends to happen in ongoing stories.

In the late 1930's, the writers for Superman made him only able to jump huge distances (not fly), and he could take up to about an artillery shell. Later, they decided he could fly, shoot heat rays, shoot ice breath, fly into space, fly across galaxies, withstand a direct nuclear explosion, fly through the heart of a star, and in some cases be of genius level intellect or have power to reverse time. In other words, he experienced power creep, which is a continued strengthening of certain variables based on creators' necessity to constantly keep it interesting and fresh and bigger than before. The downside to power creep is that if it goes too far, it's really hard to write credible stories.

In Genesis, the deity is portrayed as being limited in time and space, receiving prayers but having no direct knowledge of the town. Now, people that refer to the source material generally view their deity as a transcendent universe-creating omnipotent force. The downside is that it's really difficult to create any sort of convincing narrative of interesting conflict. That's the downside of power creep at work.

 

[Ouroboros]

Let me know whether you agree or disagree with this and why.

Essentially I agree with you. If God already has configured this universe and all our lives to be exactly to a master plan (blueprint, algorithm, or whatever), then our "will" is determined. We can't freely choose since the choices is already preset. I think the phrase "free will" is somewhat contradictory in itself. "Free" suggests something that is unbound, have no ties or dependencies to anything, while "will" seems to be something based on a wish, force, desire, etc. So one suggests no dependency, the other a dependency of some sorts. Maybe it's similar to organized chaos? Structured randomness? Deterministic indeterminism? I don't know... If I can't really say what free will really is at the core, I can't really say if it exists. But if it does, it probably not what most people think it is.

 

[Ouroboros]

For free will to exist, the will would necessarily need to be uncaused. But that seems preposterous since there is no body of science that indicates anything in the brain is uncaused. So, either free will is not of the human brain -- which would be unprovable -- or it is most likely non-existent.

Personally, I think it is a Medieval myth whose time has expired.

Right.

Somehow the "will" part (to me) seems to suggest that there's some underlying force to "control", i.e. choose, the thoughts and subsequently the actions. That force would be dependent of something in itself, something that it's not so "free". I believe that many, or perhaps most, of our actions are more like reactions to our past experience, memories, biology, psychology, etc. We grow up liking and disliking things and it influences our decisions. Sometimes, perhaps we make a choice randomly. For instance, I can't decide chocolate or vanilla. Maybe I'll pick vanilla today by chance? That would be a "free" choice without any dependencies. So we have random vs dependent. Deterministic v deterministic, simultaneous.

 

[Skwim]

Essentially I agree with you. If God already has configured this universe and all our lives to be exactly to a master plan (blueprint, algorithm, or whatever), then our "will" is determined. We can't freely choose since the choices is already preset. I think the phrase "free will" is somewhat contradictory in itself. "Free" suggests something that is unbound, have no ties or dependencies to anything, while "will" seems to be something based on a wish, force, desire, etc. So one suggests no dependency, the other a dependency of some sorts. Maybe it's similar to organized chaos? Structured randomness? Deterministic indeterminism? I don't know... If I can't really say what free will really is at the core, I can't really say if it exists. But if it does, it probably not what most people think it is.

The definition I've always preferred is,

"The ability to have done differently than what one did."
​

 

[Ouroboros]

The definition I've always preferred is,

"The ability to have done differently than what one did."
​

But would one have done differently even if they were in the same situation given all things being equal? If one did, it would be a random choice. If it was based on different conditions, then it's not really free but conditional. So I still think the problem is that there's a slight contradiction in the concept itself.

Besides, how can we know or test an ability that is based on a thought experiment that would require time travel? Essentially, the "ability to have done" suggests some mental capability that relates to "if we rewind time to that moment." We just can't know if there's an ability or not, since we can't rewind time and set everything back to the exact same state. Maybe we all would always do exactly the exact same things every time we reversed it?