From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: free will/omniscience redux (long)
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:36:48 GMT
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

In article <7177@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>"Free will" does not mean that you are free to do anything but what you do.
>>You may freely choose what you do, but having chosen, you can not do other.

>But could you have chosen something else?  If so, you were free to do
>other than what you did.  If not, how can you say you have free will?

What does this question mean?  Could you have under what circumstances?  You 
*did* (, Oscar, you did).  The past is not malleable.

The question concerning free will is whether, from the point of view of a time-
bound entity, the *future* is pre-fixed.  If it is, then the entity does not
possess free will; if it is not, the entity possesses free will.

The question concerning omnipotence/omniscience and free will is whether the
existence of an entity with these characteristics necessarily means that a
time-bound entity lacks free will.

Now, in a previous article I observed that omniscience and free will are not 
possible in *the* *same* time-bound entity.

The remaining question is whether the existence of some omniscient entity
(whether or not _that_ entity is time-bound) means that *no* time-bound entity
can possess free will; and the key to this question is the phrase "from the
point of view of."

It is absurd to imagine an entity free to behave in an utterly random fashion.
Even the stochastic behavior of subatomic particles is constrained by the
nature of the particles.  Further, their actions *are* constrained, not only by
their nature, but by their past actions.  A particle's momentum and position
are uncertain, but they are certainly related, and a change in one constrains
the possible change in the other.

That's a rather inexact statement (an exact statement involves mathematics, and
characters not in ASCII), but it gets across my point.

A time-bound entity with free will has, at any point, the ability to behave in
a variety of ways.  But that ability is constrained in several ways:

	* Physical possibility.  "Free will" does not imply that an entity
	  is free to reverse its direction along the t axis, or be unaffected
	  by gravitation.  (Of course, this applies only to entities with
	  physical bodies.  Metaphysical entities may have other laws unknown
	  and unknowable to us.)

	* Logical possibility.  "Free will" does not imply that an entity can
	  make 2+2=5, or simultaneously open and shut the same door.

	* Special possibility.  "Free will" does not entirely free an entity 
	  from the nature of its kind.  A human struck at the right spot on the 
	  knee will jerk its leg, or, if it is prepared and strong-willed, 
	  repress the reflex.  He is not free to not experience the reflex at 
	  all.  But note that he may choose (whether successfully or not) to 
	  suppress the reflex.

	* Personal (historical) possibility.  "Free will" does not free an
	  entity from its history.  An individual who has been hurt repeatedly
	  from early childhood by blue-eyed men will have an strong prejudice
	  against blue-eyed men.  He may suppress that prejudice; in time, he
	  may even overcome it; but he can not cause that prejudice not to
	  exist.  Yet at the same time he can to a large extent *act* as if
	  it did not exist (that is, he may act as he believes a person without
	  that prejudice would act).

The second and fourth of these cause the most concern; taken in conjunction,
they seem to say "he cannot act other than as he does."

Well, and in a sense, that's true.  If he acts other than as he does, he doesn't
act as he does, and that's a logical contradiction.  But the question is "is
he free to act in a range of ways, or is his action pre-fixed?"  The answer
(as I see it) is that he is free to act in a range of ways, but it is pre-
fixed that he cannot act in all of them.  Whatever choice is made eliminates
the choices not made, and from that moment on, those choices may as well never
have existed.

Turn now to the point of view of the omniscient entity.  Whatever moment of the
free-willed entity's existence the omniscient entity chooses to examine, the
free-willed entity is behaving in a manner reflecting the freely-made choices
it has made.  Because omniscience is not bound by time, the omniscient entity
can look up and down the entire extension of the free-willed entity's existence,
and, at any moment, find out what the free-willed entity's choices are and what
it is doing.

But this does not in any way alter the freedom of choice, within the bounds of
time, possessed by the time-bound, free-willed entity.  At any given moment in
time, its behavior is constrained only by physics, logic, etc.  But from that
same moment's perspective, there is no longer any freedom with respect to the
past.

To summarize:  from the point of view of an omniscient entity, the choices of
a free-willed entity are knowable because from the point of view of omniscience
all time is in effect the past and all choices have already been made.


		My baby is a Martian,
		What can I do?
		I'm in love with a giant insect,
		I got them Exoskeletal Blues
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.