| Subject: knowledge |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 07/ 1/02 2:26am
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Premise 3." on 07/ 1/02 1:30am
>
>Your argument depends on premise 3, for which I have
>disproved using a counterexample. The example
>illustrated having foreknowledge without
>predestination. So far, you have yet to attack it and
>thus my objection still stands.
This is the only proof you offered for your statement prior to now that I've seen: "Premises 4 and 5 are where the logic of the argument collapses. Just because I will do something doesn’t mean I have no choice in the matter. It could be that in that future I will in fact do action A because I freely choose that act, and the mere fact that God is aware of what I will freely choose does not in the least rob me of my freedom."
That doesn't really disprove what I'm saying. I'm saying that if something is known and is truly known, then we have no choice but to do what is known. Yes, just because you will do something doesn't mean you don't have a choice in the matter provided that knowledge is something bendable. (but you'll note that I don't think the knowledge God has would be such as to be bendable.)
I asked you to define what defintion of knowledge it was that you were using for your proof, of which I don't see in this post, and of which I cannot really comment any further until you explain what definition it is that you are using.
>
>That’s not quite what I said. I think this is
>a very good example of how one can have foreknowledge
>without predestination. Time travel is logically
>possible and there is no reason to suppose otherwise.
It's logically possible right along with the Easter Bunny, Leprechauns and a host of other things if you view the world in terms of things logic could address. It isn't in terms of the way things actually appear to be.
>
>This is only one of several views of time travel. One
>problem with your view is that if it never happened
>(the voting for one candidate), then it would seem
>that (in the future) no one would have traveled back
>in time to change something that never happened to
>begin with. Such a view seems quite shaky, if not
>completely self-defeating.
That's true, it wouldn't be necessary in the future to go back because at the moment you traveled back from a separate time line and changed history you set off a different chain of events. Hence, it is still possible for one to travel back from the future of a separate timeline where voting for Al Gore leads to the development of the time machine, but it isn't necessarily the case at the moment when Bush is voted for and a new timeline and chain of events is invoked. (you might just negate the existance of your time machine in a back to the future sort of way).
>
>
>>We don't have the
>>choice for voting for both of them because we cannot.
>>It is one or the other even if we go back in time. Can
>>we travel back in time and God still know which choice
>>we ultimately will pick? Surely, but that isn't the
>>point. The point is that whether we can travel back in
>>time and the first time through we vote for Al Gore
>>and then we travel back and vote for George Bush it is
>>if the Al Gore vote never happened, and the ultimate
>>timeline that we know of that prevails is one that God
>>knew would prevail.
>
>I’m not sure what your getting at here. Can you
>explain yourself more clearly?
God would have to know if we changed history which of two timelines complete with chains of events would be the one we would experience. So even if we go back in time, we still have to perform the timeline that God knows will prevail, else, God never knew it.
>
>In this case, God would know that we would originally
>vote for Al Gore, but then go back in time to change
>our minds. My theistic view holds that God exists
>“outside” of space-time and would thus observe the
>changes in the time stream.
I suppose placing God outside the system is a safe bet. It would be a lot like placing some kind of fantastic math outside the realm of actual math as we know it, but since it would be impossible to detect such a thing since we would be part of the system and not have access to the thing outside of the system, it might as well not be there and as I see it not be postulated to be there.
>
>In any case, this challange seems to digress. You
>have still yet to attack the counterexample I put
>forth. You claim that all our actions (including the
>non-time travel ones) are predestined if they are
>known using the sort of argument I described.
Not quite. My argument relies heavily on the defintion of knowledge and the sort of knowledge we could expect God to have. The way you stated my argument doesn't take that into account.
I also never state premise three which is that if it is known that you will do A you have no choice but to do A. My premise is instead something along the lines of "If I don't do what God knows I'm going to do he isn't all knowing". Which leads to the conclusion of either 1. God isn't all knowing. 2. God is all knowing and I have no choice but to do what he knows. Notice that this argument does not assume that there is no free will. It only assumes there is no free will if God is all knowing.
Damoclese
I
>believe I have disproved premise 3 with a
>counterexample, effectively destroying that argument.
The argument that you thought I stated would have been invalidated. That isn't the argument that I've put forth however.
>Perhaps my counterexample was unsuccessful in that it
>was not foreknowledge without predestination, but you
>have yet to do anything to demonstrate this.
I've asked you to provide the defintion of knowledge you are using for your argument. Until such time, comparing your argument to mine is like comparing apples to oranges.
Let me recap my argument once more:
1. If God has knowledge of something we should expect it to be knowledge in the purest sense of knowledge, charateristics it should possess are that it should not ever be something less than knowledge,(lest God should not know it) that it should stay put regardless of conditions, that it should represent "The Form of Knowledge" to the highest degree.
2. If God truly knows what we are going to do, then given the sort of knowledge God would have to have granting 1, we must do what God knows, or God will not know what we are going to do, making him have something less than knowledge.
Note that that argument isn't that "if I do something that doesn't mean I won't have a choice in the matter." It's "if I don't do what God knows I'm going to do God becomes less than knowing".
Damoclese
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