DV...
"I believe God, allows man to exercise free will"
Michael Fisher said...
If that is so, then God would not know which choices man makes. Because if God already knows what choice you are going to make then that choice of yours is predetermined, that is, you would not have free will, else you'd be able to surprise God with your choice.
By definition God is omniscient. If God does not know what choice you are going to make in order that you can exercise free will, then God is not omniscient. And since the definition of God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, the element of omniscience not being present, the being you refer to as God would then not be GOD.
So when you say, DV, that God grants man free will you are saying that there is no God.
1. A being with free will, given two options A and B, can freely choose between A and B.
2. God is omniscient
3. God knows I will choose A.
4. God cannot be wrong, since an omniscient being cannot have false knowledge.
5. From 3 and 4, I will choose A and cannot choose B.
6. From 1 and 5, omniscience and free will cannot co-exist.
In examining Mikes argument, the assumption is made that because God knows I will choose A somehow denies me the choice of B yada yada. God (even when reduced to the Secular Santa Clause like straw man) don't get down like that.
If I were to leave an oatmeal raisin cookie on the dresser next to my son's bed, I KNOW he's going to eat it. I did not force him to make the decision to eat it. I don't even have to be home when he eats it. But I KNOW my son well enough to know that when I come into his room that cookie will no longer exist.
His act was made completely free of my influence, but I knew, because I am his father, what his choice would be. Now HE COULD have chosen not to eat that cookie. I can see the wheels spinning in his brain now. ("Moms catch me eatin' this cookie before bed, all hell going to break loose, she's gonna start yappin' 'bout sugar this, sugar that, make me brush my teeth again, Pops gonna come down here and I gotta hear him talkin' about sugar makes you short ... I'll just have to deal with it! Gulp.") My daughter? She won't eat it without asking. But she's an angel and that's another story.
My son's choice was made free of my influence, but I KNEW what his choice would be. See Bra Mike, omniscience and free will are not incompatible and it is a non-sequitor to claim otherwise.
Now, I might be late, but I'm always on time.
46 comments:
DV, that's a real cute attempt, but knowing what is going to happen (as in omniscience) and knowing the high probability of what is going to happen (as in your knowing how your son usually reacts when you put an oatmeal cookie on his dresser) are two very different things. There is the slightest probability for example that his little sister comes in his room and eats the cookie instead, or that he falls ill for some reason, yes?
Try again.
DV your answer was correct.
The only addition you may have considered adding would have been this one, but considering your need to keep it simple - you answered at the proper level.
Only retards believe and act as though reality is mechanically black and white.
No no no no .. MF
I find this particular brand of theological fatalism arrogantly ignorant.
It presupposes that God is simply an extrapolated man on steroids, whose divine capacity is limited to that which man can understand.
The Secularist Mantra: "If it can't be reduced to our understanding, it must not exist."
Yet we are surrounded by a universe of things we cannot understand.
Any God ... that can be explained ... is not God.
But if you want to continue playing theological footsy, I suppose I could resort to a Boethian / Acquinas Solution
which would suggest God doesn't know in advance, because he isn't in time.
He just knows - looking at our path from outside of time. He sees where we were and where we are going all in one glance - as if from a mountain top.
Or, we could put on our Hindu hats and borrow from their creation myths which suggest God is in time, just like us. And because He wants us to have free will, God freely gave up his omniscience so that we could have free will.
Why does he do this? To keep from getting bored. To amuse himself. If one knows all that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all that is happening in the future - one values nothing more than surprise.
God likes to forget who he is from time to time, just so he can go through the process of realizing he is God again.
Get it? If not, peep Paramahansa Yogananda and his Self-Realization fellowship.
Meditate and fast for 30 years and then realize you are God.
Or drop Rakim in the CD player and listen to the wisdom of the 5 Percent and realize you are God right now.
I lose you Pops? Or has that Yale conditioning kicked in and caused you not to compute?
God does not exist within space and time. His perspective is not linear. Ours is. Therefore, we have the freedom to make choices along our linear journey that He 'already' knows about.
Get 'em Kalena.
Damn. Why didn't you speak up before I went through all that?
God does not exist within space and time
Interesting new age notion, not consistent, however, with the fundamental themes of the world's major religious traditions.
The number Three has been used since time immemorial to describe the fundamental attributes, principles or personalities of God and the forces of Nature. Here are a few examples :
Christian - Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Taoist - Yin, Yang, Tao
Hinduism - Brahma is the creator, Shiva is the destroyer, Vishnu is the preserver.
Hinduism - The Three Gunas - Rajas, Tamas, Sattva.
Zoroastrian - Ahura Mazda is the father of two twin spirits, Angra Mainyu is the destructive one, Spenta Mainyu is the holy spirit.
Egyptian - Re was his face; Ptah his body; and Amun his hidden identity
Sumerian - Anu is the father, Enlil is the wind-god of the earth, Enki is the god of waters and wisdom.
Etruscan - Tinia, Uni, and Menerva.
Roman - Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.
The universe is a being with three centers corresponding to our own; their material aspect is comprised of vibration-rates which appear to us as substances. The universe is the body of God; it is the neutralizing force of the Sun Absolute, the manifestation of the interaction of the positive and negative forces of God. We live in the body of God, are made in the image of God and God's 'fancy' is immortality. God is the "I" of the universe, is termed His Endlessness and is not inferior to time. Time is a perpetual perishing. It is the enemy of God. He has a purpose. Our Hope depends on our ability to discover His purpose and co-operate with it. This is the definition of religion, helping God.
Yes, CNu
But will he eat the cookie?
Nah. CNu. I'm open to a little harnel-miatznel my damn self. My conception of God transcends what is typically assumed by Secularists of people who acknowledge God. (Skip) It's not the benevolent Santa Clause. It's more like I am God waiting to happen when my higher self blends with my lower self and actualizes in the middle.
Damn Skippy DV.
I would too, cause as Gawd's right hand man, doing Gawd's work, I would know that cookie to be tasty, nutritious, and put there f'me!!!
(even more so if it's on MY muhphuggin dresser)
Precisely....,
None of em addressed to you either...,
DV,
Sorry, i didn't notice this post before. I commented after reading it for the first time.
"If something exists, DV, it is understandable. Otherwise you wouldn't know it exists. Simple. There is only one thing that exists and is not definable in terms other than itself. And we already went through that one, DV. . . If God can not be explained, then God can not explain God. Which means that God is not omnipotent. Which means God is not GOD."
I almost laughed out loud at that. This is so funny, and now i understand where the communication break down has occured. Fisher is coming from the line of thinking that the world is based, or centered, around human thought and capacity. Thank God it's not, right?
Something can, in fact millions of things do, exist outside of the realm of human understanding, Fisher.
To: anon 8:08
Theoretical physics is my hobby, thus the stuff that David Deutsch
and friends came up with is quite familiar.
DV...
"Yet we are surrounded by a universe of things we cannot understand."
And you know this why? How about "Yet we are surrounded by a universe of things we do not yet understand."?
If something exists, DV, it is understandable. Otherwise you wouldn't know it exists. Simple. There is only one thing that exists and is not definable in terms other than itself. And we already went through that one, DV.
"Any God ... that can be explained ... is not God."
If God can not be explained, then God can not explain God. Which means that God is not omnipotent. Which means God is not GOD.
"I suppose I could resort to a Boethian / Acquinas Solution
which would suggest God doesn't know in advance, because he isn't in time."
Well, that supposes time is a thing rather than a relationship. No matter, if God is not in time, then God is not omnipresent. Which means God is not GOD.
"He just knows - looking at our path from outside of time. He sees where we were and where we are going all in one glance - as if from a mountain top."
That is logically consistent with the concept of omniscience and, by god seeing all that is in time at once, fixes all that has and will happen. Thus no free will.
"Or, we could put on our Hindu hats and borrow from their creation myths which suggest God is in time, just like us. And because He wants us to have free will, God freely gave up his omniscience so that we could have free will.
Why does he do this? To keep from getting bored. To amuse himself. If one knows all that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all that is happening in the future - one values nothing more than surprise.
God likes to forget who he is from time to time, just so he can go through the process of realizing he is God again."
Well, if God gives up his/her/its omniscience then God (omniscient) ceases to be GOD. Since we, as you suppose, presently have Free Will, then GOD does not exist presently.
"Or drop Rakim in the CD player and listen to the wisdom of the 5 Percent and realize you are God right now."
DV, in the 80's I used Five Percenter doctrine to teach Special Ed Junior High school kids in the South Bronx Algebra and Calculus. With old textbooks that I found in a broom closet because the school wouldn't provide me with any for the kids. Clarence 13X was very helpful in that respect, even after his death.
DV...
"realize you are God right now"
I already earlier presented you with a logical argument for the existence of God that arrived at this conclusion. You got memory lapses?
Kalena
"God does not exist within space and time."
See my answer above.
Nulan...
"The universe is a being with three centers..."
Lot's of words, most of 'em logically inconsistent, and certainly none dealing with Free Will.
kalena...
"Something can, in fact millions of things do, exist outside of the realm of human understanding, Fisher."
Like what?
How do you know that something you do not understand today you will not understand tomorrow?
"If God can not be explained, then God can not explain God."
Fisher,
This sentence is not descriptive of a mutually exclusive relationship. Human beings' inability to explain God has no bearing on God's ability to explain God. Which makes your conclusion of "then God is not God" invalid since it's based on an incorrect, or flawed, argument.
"How do you know that something you do not understand today you will not understand tomorrow?"
That question has nothing to do with what i said.
Are you saying that the moment you understand something is the moment it is birthed into existence? Surely that's not what you're saying.
Something i do not understand today, i may never understand. My understanding of it has no bearing on the existence of said entity.
Things show evidence of existing far before any human has disected, studied and ultimately understood it.
kalena...
"Fisher is coming from the line of thinking that the world is based, or centered, around human thought and capacity."
Not at all. If God is omnipotent then God is able to explain God to humans, even given their supposed limited human-centered capacity.
If God can not be explained by God to humans then God is not omnipotent and thus is not GOD.
kalena...
"This sentence is not descriptive of a mutually exclusive relationship. Human beings' inability to explain God..."
Kalena, DV made an absolute statement. He did not say God can not be explained (conditional) by human beings. I responded to the statement.
By the way, it is not correct that humans are not able to understand, or better, define, God. Thus the following definition: God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.
"DV, in the 80's I used Five Percenter doctrine to teach Special Ed Junior High school kids in the South Bronx Algebra and Calculus." MF
Oh yeah?
Well in the 90's I taught blind kids to play tennis and golf.
...
lol. Nah, I'm just playing. But that's an awful lot Fish. Damn! You taught "Special Ed" kids alebra .... AND calculus?
Forget how ... why?!
"Something can, in fact millions of things do, exist outside of the realm of human understanding, Fisher."
"Like what?" MF
1) The flight of a bumblebee.
2) Why a bitch always wants something he / she can't have
3) How Bill Clinton can go home with that hateful heifer.
4) When punany is so soft n sweet some dudes rather be with a hairy ass man.
I challenge you to explain any of that to me Fish.
"If God can not be explained by God to humans then God is not omnipotent and thus is not GOD." MF
Unless ... God determines ... that human is not yet ready to have God 'explained' to him.
Maybe God feels, that particular human, is not capable of handling the responsibility of a God he can comprehend, much like a father would not give a Ferrari to a 16 year old unable to handle it.
Too much knowledge can be as dangerous as 0 to 60 in 4.3.
DV...
"Forget how ... why?!"
Why not?
Incidentally, in the Harlem and South Bronx schools I taught when I was a teacher the Special Ed kids were usually among the most intelligent kids. Which made them revolt against a stifling school. Which landed them in Special Ed.
"1) The flight of a bumblebee.
2) Why a bitch always wants something he / she can't have
3) How Bill Clinton can go home with that hateful heifer.
4) When punany is so soft n sweet some dudes rather be with a hairy ass man."
Now you are resorting to bullshit.
Stay serious.
DV...
"Unless ... God determines ... that human is not yet ready to have God 'explained' to him."
DV, you initially used the term "can not" as ""not able". Now you are putting a conditional on it. That's fine, but it still doesn't resolve the basic contradiction of Omniscience and Free Will. Like I said, once you presuppose that there is Free Will, then there is no GOD (as you have been positing God all throughout).
There is only one way to resolve the contradiction logically. And you grazed it apparently without being aware thereof.
What do you think it is?
Fish,
I'm not ready to concede your assumption that Omniscience and Free Will are a contradiction.
I thought Kalena straightened you out on that.
Don't you find it an arrogantly ignorant assumption to even reduce God to a human concept like "Omniscience" to begin?
There could be a dimension of existence, a state of being, we simply are not hip to ... at this level of development ... we call human.
kalena...
"Something i do not understand today, i may never understand.
Note the conditional may. Which means you may never understand o you may understand at some future time.
"My understanding of it has no bearing on the existence of said entity."
No argument there. But how does this resolve the contradiction of the Omniscience of God and Free Will?
DV...
"I'm not ready to concede your assumption that Omniscience and Free Will are a contradiction."
Well, then show how they are not. (Hint. Re-read what you stated, you almost did)
"I thought Kalena straightened you out on that."
Apparently what you thought has no bearing on reality (to paraphrase Kalena).
She certainly did no such thing.
Come on DV, THINK, THINK. The logical solution is right there in front of you.
And no, I ain't gonna tell you until your arrogant ass says "Unko Mike" ;)
DV,
Some folks obsessively, compulsively, and pathologically confuse the "deductive" tree with the "inductive" forest - and in the process FUBAR their own thinking and expression beyond what is recoverable.
You should stand firm on that Luciferian tip brah....,
The Conscious Mind is Fitted to the Photon Interaction
However, what is normally referred to as the "conscious, thinking mind" is simply a functioning temporal (rigorously, chronotopological) mechanism that is painfully built up in the individual's awareness (his mind in the greater sense of both thought and awareness, whether monocular or multiocular) by training, conditioning and experience. Its functioning is largely conditioned by one's 90% or so attention to visual stimuli (to the partial reality remaining after photon interaction has been invoked, and to the memory-collated ordering of vast numbers of such photon interactions) and by one's cultural conditioning - which itself has been almost exclusively conditioned and shaped by the monocular photon interaction at base root.
Thus, since the beginning of man, his conscious, rational mind has been trained and constructed to function almost exclusively in basic correspondence with the photon interaction, and his experiential reality consists of the partial reality stripped from fundamental reality by photon interaction.
All "perceived differences," e.g., are created by this deep mind-set. As has been previously pointed out, 6 the solitary human problem responsible for all man's inhumanity to his fellow man is directly dependent upon man's almost exclusive detection, observation, perception, and conception of "difference" between humans, these "differences" being due exclusively and totally to the fitting of men's conscious minds to the photon interaction's monocular separation of spatial reality from nonspatial reality, i.e., to
∂/∂T (L3T) => L3
Such well-nigh total devotion to, and enslavement by, photon interaction also is responsible for the scientist's well-nigh total devotion to, and enslavement by, the present imperfect and incomplete three laws of logic, as presented by Aristotle. The depth of that devotion and enslavement is evidenced by the fact that the resolution of such paradoxes as Heraclitus's problem of change have eluded the best minds of humanity for several thousands of years. Indeed, these paradoxes cannot be resolved by the conscious, rational mind in its present state, for it has been most firmly constructed and fitted to function in accordance with the photon interaction.7 One cannot hope to resolve any logical paradox by using only those same logical methods that found the situation to be paradoxical in the first place!
Nulan...
"The Conscious Mind is Fitted to the Photon Interaction
However, what is normally referred to as the "conscious, thinking mind" is simply a functioning temporal (rigorously, chronotopological) mechanism that is painfully built up in the individual's awareness..."
Here we go again... another Nul(l)anism.
Don't you see the circular argument in that, Nulan?
Defining "conscious, thinking mind" in terms of "awareness"?
I don't know Fish.
The brotha makes a good point:
"One cannot hope to resolve any logical paradox by using only those same logical methods that found the situation to be paradoxical in the first place!" Cnu
Which is the problem with the theoretical physics riddle to begin with ... no?
Fisher,
what's the shortest distance between two points?
DV...
"Which is the problem with the theoretical physics riddle to begin with ... no?"
No.
And Nul(l)an's point is no point.
anon...
"Fisher,
what's the shortest distance between two points?
A curve.
By the by, interesting that as God Morgan Freeman has to wear a white suit...
Michael Fisher said...
"By the by, interesting that as God Morgan Freeman has to wear a white suit..."
Mike. you kiddin' right?
LOL @ the white suit. You now damn well he was dead serious.
Kalena, props to you. You beat Mike at his own analytical game way up top.
My favorite parts though...
lol. Nah, I'm just playing. But that's an awful lot Fish. Damn! You taught "Special Ed" kids alebra .... AND calculus?
Forget how ... why?!
"Something can, in fact millions of things do, exist outside of the realm of human understanding, Fisher."
"Like what?" MF
1) The flight of a bumblebee.
2) Why a bitch always wants something he / she can't have
3) How Bill Clinton can go home with that hateful heifer.
4) When punany is so soft n sweet some dudes rather be with a hairy ass man.
DV, you's a fool!
"DV, you's a fool!" Robyn
LOL. Robyn. You feel me?
Thank God for you.
I was startin' to think ... I ... was the crazy one.
Robyn...
"Kalena, props to you. You beat Mike at his own analytical game way up top."
Ahem...
Robyn, how would that be? Where exactly?
Besides, all y'all haven't followed the logic to it's end. DV goes into some convoluted reasoning, and failing to arrive at the solution makes dumb jokes, Kalena tries by making non-provable ssumptions and Nulan even wants to avoid all logic period and institute a whole new system of "logic". (I guess where 1+1=5.75).
All that ain't necessary.
The solution is right under your noses.
Like I said, DV even scraped along side the solution without knowing he did so.
DV...
"I was startin' to think ... I ... was the crazy one."
Oh, but you are, DV. You are.
So Mike, helps us out.
What's the solution?
DV...
"So Mike, helps us out.
What's the solution?
You didn't say "Unko Mike"
DV...
"What's the solution?"
Well, ok then.
It's so simple it'll appear anti-climatic.
Omni - "all"
The combination: omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscience, is just a convoluted way of saying "Everything".
Omnipresent - present everywhere
- and so is "everything" present everywhere
Omnipotent - all the power/energy that exists everywhere
- and so does "everything" contain all the power/energy that exists everywhere
Omniscience - all the information that exists everywhere
- and so does "everything" contain all the information that exists everywhere.
Thus, to repeat, "Omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient" are just fancy words for one concept - "Everything".
Following the logic presented in an earlier post/comment section we came to understand that everything but one thing can be defined in terms of something else. That is, every definition of something is a functional definition, because everything has a function. It does something. Even if it is just a rock sitting there for billions of years. It's function? It sits there.
Ok, since everything can be defined in terms of something else except one thing, the question once again is, what is that one thing?
Simple: "Everything".
Everything is the only thing that can only be defined in terms of itself.
Since there is only one thing that can be defined in terms of itself, anything else that may only be defined by anything but itself must be the same thing as "everything".
For example GOD. Being omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, ca only be defined by anything but itself.
The only "other" thing that can only be defined by anything but itself is "awareness" or "consciousness".
That's cause you gotta be aware in order to define anything in the first place.
Ergo "awareness" or "Consciousness" is the same thing as "everything", and we already know that "everything" is omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence - that is GOD.
Thus Awareness/Consciousness is GOD.
Everybody and everything conscious (except for DV and Nulan) is... aware/conscious.
Thus everything that is aware is GOD. Given that as with all the other myriad aware/conscious things out there, humans (with the two cited exceptions) are aware, humans are GOD.
GOD is omnipotent, thus GOD, by definition, possesses Free Will.
Since we, being awareness/consciousness, logically indeed are GOD (collectively), we have Free Will.
As DV stumbled upon it: "realize you are God right now".
By the way, Kalena, this is why the knowledge of God logically is not outside the realm of human understanding. Understand ourselves in our capacity as consciousness/awareness and we understand GOD.
Again, as DV said "realize you are God right now".
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