Omniscience

[RevMARKSman]

I was recently in a debate with someone about omniscience excluding free will.
My argument is as follows:

If an omniscient being exists, it knows everything. (definition of omniscience)
If a being knows everything, it knows all facts about what will happen. (definition of everything)
If a being knows all facts about what will happen, these facts must be true. (definition of "know")
If there are true facts about what will happen, we (all beings) cannot change them. (definition of "true" in a philosophical/mathematical sense)
If we cannot change what will happen, we have no free will. (definition of free will)
If an omniscient being exists, we have no free will. (Law of Syllogism)

My opponent has an issue with Step 2. He says that the future does not exist, and therefore is not part of the infinite set "everything." Does the future exist by its conventional definition? Is something that has not happened yet part of the Everything set?

Discuss.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The argument falls at the first hurdle:


If an omniscient being exists, it knows everything. (definition of omniscience)

The problem is this "everything"; it is unrestricted, and hence meaningless.

[What does it include/leave out? As soon as you try to say, you will have to impose arbitrary restrictions on it, vitiating ones supposed 'knowledge' of the 'Divine'. This is because you will merely be signalling what follows from an arbitrary convention, not from 'His' supposed nature.]

There are several other dodgy moves in this argument (in fact, nearly as many as there are words), but this is the most profound.

[Bretty123]

How could the future exist? If it existed then it wouldn't be the future.

The point of the word future is to conceive of what is expected.

Can we point to the future? Can we point mentally to what we define as future?

We can only point to things we think may resemble the future [i.e. science fiction]

Future only exists as an abstract concept and in no way does it exist in reality at any point in time.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Bretty, check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_time

[hoopla]

whether some point in time is in the future or past is entirely dependent on which frame of reference you are using as a basis for observing itand this is supposed to be novel :angry:


Since an observer at any given point in time can only remember events that are in the past relative to him, and not events that are in the future relative to him, the subjective illusion of the passage of time is maintained.But why can we not "remember" (bit dodgy for a "science" article) our future? And why would this make it an illusion - because a fictional God couldn't see it, without straining a bit, at least?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hoop, you need to think before you post: there is a directionality to time given by the second law of thermodynamics.

The illusion spoken of here is merely with reference to our subjective view of things -- 'objectively', there is no change, so the fact that we think there is where the illusion enters in.

Given this theory, the universe is Parmenidean, not Heraclitean, and bang goes dialectics.

I am not advocating this idea, nor suggesting I accept it, but it is a serious problem for those who do.

[hoopla]

The illusion spoken of here is merely with reference to our subjective view of things -- 'objectively', there is no change, so the fact that we think there is where the illusion enters in.I don't understand, what has changed?
observers in different frames of reference will have different perceptions of which events are in the future and which are in the past -- there is no way to definitively identify a particular point in universal time as "the present". Furthermore, there is no fundamental reason why a particular "present" should be more valid than any other; observers at any point in time will always consider themselves to be in the presentI always think that now is the present, and I don't mean the time that just passed. Sorry if I am still being thick.

[hoopla]

Sorry, I think I understand your point now - objectively there is no change in time. Doesn't seem very different to what I expected. I suppose I would like to think that my future is not set, but the rest of it seems like common sense.

I still insist that just because it cannot be said to so for "God's" view that the passage of time is an illusion.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hoop, promise me you will try to read at least one of my posts with an atom of care in future:


Sorry, I think I understand your point now - objectively there is no change in time. Doesn't seem very different to what I expected. I suppose I would like to think that my future is not set, but the rest of it seems like common sense.

When I had in fact said:


I am not advocating this idea, nor suggesting I accept it, but it is a serious problem for those who do.

[My own view is that in order to translate this theory from the technical terminology of Physics into ordinary-ish sort of language, scientists have to indulge in some amateur metaphysics -- and that is why none of it makes sense to you, or to anyone.]