The impossibility of knowing the future?

[Gorgias]

The mind is the activity of the brain, the electro-chemical interactions of the neurons.

That’s a wonderful definition! Now… if you can prove it, we’ll accept it. If you can’t (and, let’s be honest: you can’t), then it’s a bald, unsubstantiated assertion.

Presumably your "definition of omniscience is: “ to know everything that one wills to know .”

No. Like I said: keep ignoring the fact that you’ve been given reasonable definitions of omniscience, and keep trying to deny and distort what was asserted. We know what you’re up to. It’s not working.

Omnipotence is only about the ability to do something, nothing else.

Which is what I claimed: the ability to do all that one wills.

Anyone believes that omnipotence is contingent upon willing to do something is ultra-super-irrational.

OK – prove why it’s “ultra-super-rational.”

Because there is one thing where the “will” is important… and that is the “willingness” to learn.

And when you show that willingness, perhaps you’ll learn. Until then, you’ll blather. Have fun.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

The concepts of “hot” and “cold” cannot be mixed to arrive at the concept of “tepid”. Capisci?

I think you mean to say “conception” of hot and cold instead of “concept”. Furthermore, I disagree with that concept.

Also, this is America and we say capeesh, capeesh? You had me googling Capisci.

 

[JamesATyler]

Knowing the future could even be done without being outside the present, actually. If one knew the arrangement of every atom that exists and in what direction they were moving, all laws governing the physical world, how all things reacted to each other, understood the will of all creatures, their emotions, their lives, their souls, the spirit of everything, knew every thought, every personality, every ephiphony, knew every free and unfree will…and everything else that is…

Then by mere accurate prediction of all that exists, provided everything is thought of and nothing is forgotten, one could predict infinity.

 

[TheHolyTrinity]

Doesn’t history just repeat itself. Therefore is predictable. ?

 

[Gorgias]

There is this whole, wonderful science called neuroscience , with laboratories, experiments, researching the subjects all over the world.

And has it found the “mind”? Has it found it to be possible to create a comprehensive map of neural activity, as you are claiming? (I’ll save you time: the answer is ‘no’.)

Definitions? Now you claim more than one? In plural ?

Knowledge of all things that – from our perspective – have been, are, or will be.

I understand a bit better why you think this is nonsense – you don’t think that the future is ‘real’ and that, outside the context of the universe, there’s still a dependency on the temporal framework that exists only within the universe. (You like using the “time within time” example of the performing arts. Your claim is like saying that, when a movie premieres, the director cannot know how the film ends.)

And if one wills to make a four-sided triangle? Is that part of omnipotence?

God does not will to do the illogical.

Omnipotence would - at first glance - imply to do anything and everything, whether one wishes (or wills, these are synonyms!) to actually perform the acts or not

That’s your definition, and you’re welcome to it. I disagree that this is a reasonable definition. The proposition “to do what one does not do” just doesn’t hold up to reason.

You really need to learn to read. I used the word IR rational.

Just as I expected. Empty insults. No explanation or clarity. Par for the course.

 

[Gorgias]

The film is deterministic, and frozen, once it is shot and cut and finished. So the hypothetical end can be known. What cannot be known even by the director, IF the performance will be finished or not. Because that is not deterministic, a meteor can strike the building and obliterate the whole shebang.

The question isn’t the performance of the movie, but the movie itself.

The future does NOT exist, except as a potential.

That’s one opinion.

In fact, what you’ve just claimed is how we, from within the context of the universe, perceive reality. However, that doesn’t mean that our frame of reference – and our limitations – are the only ‘reality’ that’s out there.

Look up ‘eternalism’ or the ‘growing block’ theories. They disagree with your theory.

In a fully deterministic system the future could be predicted

We claim that it can be known – by God – without being determined by Him. Go ahead, tell me that this is ‘nonsense’. I’m used to it from you.

Especially if there are “free” beings, whose actions cannot be predicted.

See? You need to finish your sentences for them to be accurate: “especially if there are ‘free’ beings, whose actions cannot be predicted by others who exist in their framework”. Much better. Glad I could fix that for you.

 

[JamesATyler]

Are you sure that free will can’t be predicted even one knows everything that bears on the will and all the reasons why the will is as it is? Humans can predict the will of others to a certain extent with some success with very limited knowledge compared to what I proposed.

 

[Gorgias]

How can you call something to be free, if it is determined by anything

How can you call it ‘free’, if it is determined by nothing? In that case, you’d call it ‘arbitrary’, not ‘free’…

Humans cannot predict it, they may have come more or less accurate guess what it might be.

That’s a nice dodge – since it’s not perfect knowledge of will, you’re calling the assessment of will a ‘guess’. By that standard, all of science is merely a ‘guess’.

 

[JamesATyler]

How can you call something to be free, if it is determined by anything? Humans cannot predict it, they may have come more or less accurate guess what it might be.

I see what you are getting at, maybe. Freedom is the ability to be unforseen. To be foreseen means you can’t what? Win? Outsmart? Outmanuever? Give a surprise Christmas gift? It is true. None of us are that free and you might found you don’t want to be. You might find comfort in what he knows on your behalf.

 

[JerryZ]

Well the answer is quite simple. God is all knowing and therefore HE can foresee every possible permutation of action every human, animal, plant, microbe, particle, atom in the Universe since the beginning to the end of it.

This is why He can know the future. Also remember He is not bound by time like us. We are trapped inside the Universe in the “Space-Time Continuum” to use a scientific expression of our state. He is outside Time and Space having created it all.

 

[JamesATyler]

If your actions are foreseen, then you are unable to do anything else. And that is NOT freedom.

Doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything other than what God has foreseen? As you said, everything else is just a guess. In that sense, I concede you have freewill in all things other than what God says will happen. I know what you will likely say. “He sees all so…”.

 

[JerryZ]

Do you play chess?

 

[Delusioned]

Well the answer is quite simple. God is all knowing and therefore HE can foresee every possible permutation of action every human, animal, plant, microbe, particle, atom in the Universe since the beginning to the end of it.

This is why He can know the future.

This leads inevitably to one of two conclusions, either God effectively knows nothing, or there’s no such thing as free will.

Because if God’s knowledge of the state of reality now, allows Him to predict the state of reality in the future, then this is only possible if reality is deterministic. And if reality is deterministic, then there’s no such thing as free will. On the other hand, if God’s omniscience simply allows Him to know every possible future, then He effectively knows nothing. It would be like God being able to predict that the roll of a die will come up either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Not very impressive for an omniscient being.

So it’s not that God’s omniscience allows Him to PREDICT or FORESEE the future. It’s that to God, the future already exists. It’s not that His omniscience allows Him to predict it…He knows it.

 

[JamesATyler]

As log as I have freedom, I can choose to deviate from the prediction, thereby invalidating the prediction.

So, if God knows the future, you can only be free from your future, if God tells you what it is, thereby granting you the ability to choose differently. Without God giving you that insight, you cannot change it.

 

[JamesATyler]

That is fine. Of course if there is no revelation about the future, then God’s omniscience is just another unsubstantiated assumption, of which dime is a dozen.

Also, knowledge alone might not be enough to grant freedom. For example, every time you see a rabbit, you can’t resist chasing it. So freedom requires some personal strength too.

 

[JamesATyler]

It was just an analogy but perhaps you do mean to say you are in complete control and the ultimate master of your fate. Maybe you have no weakness, is what I am getting at. You sound like a person who thinks his logic would lead him to the proper choice in all situations. A Vulcan, if you are old enough for the reference. Perhaps a person without regret. No major mistakes. I am baffled that you took the “chase the rabbit” literally. Are you a machine? An AI? Forgive me for wondering, if you are human.

 

[Thom18]

If it were possible for something, human, machine, or otherwise to know the future, it could be written down and made available for all to read. There would most certainly be someone who then could act in a way as to make sure that the events forecast did not happen as was written down. The conclusion has to be then, that the future could never be known with certainty. How then can we say God knows the future?

God can know the future with certainty (and does), and He doesn’t need to share it with us for it to be so. However, He has told us a bit- that He will triumph and Satan will fail- yet Satan can do nothing to stop it, despite knowing what God has said (and men have written down) himself.

 

[JamesATyler]

Are you a computer AI?

 

[JamesATyler]

I had edited my post and expanded a bit before i realized you has responded by saying"What the…!?".

I was only pointing out that only one that has no weakness can claim to be free to choose, whether the future is known or not. By threat or by seduction or other means, even the present evil is challenging. I know it is only a complicating aspect to the purer conversation, but to be fair, there are choices that are made which lead to a bad end and are known to, yet people make them.

I would assert that knowing your fate does not necessarily free you from it and not knowing your fate does not necessarily free you either. Indeed, knowing the future could make a person even less free , if the future is very challenging.

 

[JamesATyler]

Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what are you talking about. All I am saying is that there are two possible scenarios:

1. there is a revelation about the future, and then - if I am a free agent - can invalidate the prediction, or
2. there is NO revelation and in that case the claim of omniscience is just an empty claim, not worth to ponder.

Every choice has consequences. With the future revealed, supposing you gained extra options from that knowledge, you can argue successfully that you have more options, but you can’t argue that you are free to invalidate the prediction because you may not be free to accept the consequences. There is more to freedom than just making intellectual choices. A machine would be free, so long as it’s coding was simple, but human beings are not just thinking machines.

As you said. So long as you are free to invalidate it, then you can do so. I agree. I do not think you will be given a revelation from God about the future which he says you cannot change but you manage to do so anyway. If it is changeable, he will not tell you that it is not.

As a human being with limited knowledge, i can predict that one day, if you are human, you will die, like all people die. You can’t do anything about it. Tell me your other choice, now that you have this revelation from even just a mere mortal.