From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: God violates physical laws?
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 92 13:12:47 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

dekorte@scrinext.scri.fsu.edu (Stephen L. DeKorte) writes:
> Religious folk always seem to bring up this 'free will' stuff to 
> weasle out of the logical implications of omnipotence & omniscience.
> But I've yet to figure out just exactly what it is.
> 
> Ex:How does one determine if one has free will or not?
> Perphaps some experiment?
> 
> It seems to me, that if this can't be done then all this talk of
> 'free will' is meaningless/moot.

Here are my thoughts on "free will". I've posted them before, and no doubt
I'll post them again...

===

I've kept out of this Free Will debate so far, but people keep on missing the
point.  I'll try to illustrate by asking a question:

                     How do I know if I have free will?

Now for some thought-experiments...

1. Suppose I'm sitting in the Mantis offices, and I suddenly feel thirsty. 
In the fridge is a can of Irn Bru and a can of Lilt.  I decide to drink the
Irn Bru.  No gods were watching.  Did I just express free will?  Clearly yes.

2. Now suppose the same event occurs -- I'm thirsty, I decide to have a
drink, I choose one particular drink.  Only this time, a psychic in Australia
had a vision which showed my picking up the can of Irn Bru, seconds before I
in fact made the decision.  Did I express free will?

My answer is "Clearly yes."  After all, the event in question was the same,
the processes running through my brain were identical.  There is no
*observable* (by me) *operational* difference in the second case, so it makes
no sense to distinguish between the two.

If you wish to answer "No", you must bring in the concept of an unbiased
external observer who is aware both of the events concerning me and my
actions, and of the actions and knowledge of the psychic.  Only such an
observer can tell the difference between cases 1 and 2.

This observer must, in fact, be present-omniscient (i.e., not necessarily
able to see into the future, but omniscient concerning past and present) in
order to know that nobody predicted my actions.  Only then can we draw a
distinction between the first and second cases.  I find the concept of such
an observer (a) bizarre and (b) unsupportable given the lack of evidence for
any such observer.

3. Now suppose that as I am starting to feel thirsty, Tony writes down "Irn
Bru" on a piece of paper and places it in a sealed envelope.  He has no firm
knowledge of the future, and is just guessing based on my preferences in
drinks.  I do indeed choose Irn Bru, and he then hands me the sealed
envelope.  I open it, and read the correct prediction.  Did I act with free
will?  Clearly yes.

4. Now suppose that as I am starting to feel thirsty, Tony gets a telephone
call from the psychic in Australia, who tells him that I'm about to drink the
can of Irn Bru.  He writes down the information and seals it in an envelope
as before.  After I choose the drink, he gives me the envelope and I read the
prediction.  Did I act with free will?

My answer is "Clearly yes", for much the same reasons as last time.  Both
cases are *to me* absolutely identical.  Unless I give the testimony of
others primacy over my own experience, I cannot validly draw a distinction
between the two cases.

After ten or twenty similar sealed envelope predictions I might get
suspicious, but because of the way probability works I would be unable to
conclude anything.  (I might hypothesize, however, that Tony was only handing
me the successful predictions :-)

5. Now suppose that as I am starting to feel thirsty, Tony gets the telephone
call from the psychic, and TELLS ME THAT I AM GOING TO CHOOSE THE IRN BRU.
I go to the fridge and take the Irn Bru.  Did I act with free will?

NO.  The essential difference is that in this case *I* am aware of
precognitive knowledge concerning my future actions, and that I am powerless
to act in any way not in accordance with that prediction.

So as I see it, the critical factor in determining free will is whether the
individual making the decision is aware of what his choice will be in
advance.

Now for some remarks relevant to the original point made...

Let us temporarily assume for the purposes of argument that a Christian God
exists.

The fact that God is omniscient DOES NOT preclude my having free will.  God
is like the psychic in Australia; so long as he doesn't tell *me* what I am
going to do, my choice is free.

However, this does NOT absolve him of responsibility for my actions, since he
created me knowing what I would do.  Similarly, if I create a program which
wipes hard disks and post it to Usenet, I am not absolved of responsibility
if someone runs it.


mathew
-- 
Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?

Newsgroups: alt.atheism