Can an omniscient being possess free will?

[Filthy Tugboat]

Can an omniscient being possess free will?

Omniscience is defined as:

•The state or quality of knowing everything.
mises.org/easier/O.asp

With that definition in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that any omniscient being would know the inifnite future which includes the actions that they will perform for the entire expanse of their existence.

•The question of free will is the philosophical question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Based on this definition free will is being able to make choices without restriction. So the entirity of this argument is basically addressing the concept that omniscience is a restriction on freewill.

So if you know the infinite future including your own actions then can you make a choice? Is the knowledge of what you will do and why a restriction on how many 'choices' you can make? If you are physically capable of performing countless actions or making countless responses, does omniscience restrict your options to just one? If omniscience does restrict your options in every scenario to just one, how could that be considered free will?

[cholland]

Yes, You're wirting the story but you neither have omnisceince nor the final result of the story so this answer does not apply to the OP. If before you put pen to paper you know the entire layout of the story and nothing will change before publication then what choice did you make while writing? You're not making it up as you go along, you dojn't have 'other options' to consider, you know how the story is going to be and there is nothing you can do to change that, therefore, no free will. If you did not know the final result then you do not have omniscience.

I see. It's more like the chicken and the egg. What if I reside outside of the space/time continuum? Even though I wrote the story on X day does not mean that I made up the story on X day. I have known the story since infinite past and I decided to write the story on X day. I both authored the story in infinite past, knew the story for all eternity, and wrote it on X day.

[Goat]

Yes, You're wirting the story but you neither have omnisceince nor the final result of the story so this answer does not apply to the OP. If before you put pen to paper you know the entire layout of the story and nothing will change before publication then what choice did you make while writing? You're not making it up as you go along, you dojn't have 'other options' to consider, you know how the story is going to be and there is nothing you can do to change that, therefore, no free will. If you did not know the final result then you do not have omniscience.

I see. It's more like the chicken and the egg. What if I reside outside of the space/time continuum? Even though I wrote the story on X day does not mean that I made up the story on X day. I have known the story since infinite past and I decided to write the story on X day. I both authored the story in infinite past, knew the story for all eternity, and wrote it on X day.

Totally irrelevant to the point..because it still means that the 'future' is immutable.

[cholland]

I see. It's more like the chicken and the egg. What if I reside outside of the space/time continuum? Even though I wrote the story on X day does not mean that I made up the story on X day. I have known the story since infinite past and I decided to write the story on X day. I both authored the story in infinite past, knew the story for all eternity, and wrote it on X day.

Totally irrelevant to the point..because it still means that the 'future' is immutable.

But the future is immutable because of me - I wrote it. If I am the cause of the future being immutable, I don't see how that restricts my free will. It restricts me from changing my mind, but it was my choice.

[McCulloch]

What if I reside outside of the space/time continuum?

I don't even know what that means. How can one even speak of existence outside of spacetime?

[Filthy Tugboat]

Yes, You're wirting the story but you neither have omnisceince nor the final result of the story so this answer does not apply to the OP. If before you put pen to paper you know the entire layout of the story and nothing will change before publication then what choice did you make while writing? You're not making it up as you go along, you dojn't have 'other options' to consider, you know how the story is going to be and there is nothing you can do to change that, therefore, no free will. If you did not know the final result then you do not have omniscience.

I see. It's more like the chicken and the egg. What if I reside outside of the space/time continuum? Even though I wrote the story on X day does not mean that I made up the story on X day. I have known the story since infinite past and I decided to write the story on X day. I both authored the story in infinite past, knew the story for all eternity, and wrote it on X day.

I agree, what do you mean by reside outside of 'spacetime'? Assuming such a thing is possible, how could you choose a date if you were not apart of spacetime?

[NoisForm]

-since this initial part of my post, I've been swayed by cholland's points, but I'll leave it in, as it was my take on it as of about five minutes ago. The bolded areas are points where I was, frankly, arguing something not relevant to the OP. I'll be (for the first time here I believe), debating myself from a few minutes ago. -

I'll take a stab at this. I'm not sure analogies are helpful, so I'll drop 'em.

In this example, you are the omniscient being. From the OP, I'll take this to mean that you have absolute, complete knowledge of all things including all future events, which of course would include your own 'decisions'.

Let's be specific. One year from this moment, you know with complete certainty that you will choose 'x' (in fact, you have known of this future 'decision', 'x', from the beginning of your existence).

The question is, considering your perfect knowledge of this future 'choice', can you now, or at any time between now and that event, 'choose' anything other than that? Could you change your mind, and decide instead to choose 'y' for example?

If you have the ability to change that future 'decision', than your perfect foreknowledge was not perfect after all.
If you do not have the ability to change it, one has to question how free you would actually be.

If one has had perfect knowledge of all their future decisions since they began to exist, it would appear that only those specific decisions were possible.*

*This is simply not so, it appears. That you made a particular set of decisions at the moment you came into existence (presumably, all of your future decisions), and may not be able to change those decisions, says nothing about the freedom you possessed when you made those decisions.

"It's more like the chicken and the egg."

I think this is the problem, yes. From the moment of your existence, you would have perfect knowledge of all 'decisions' you would ever make, thus eliminating the possibility for you to ever make any other 'decision', to change your mind, to 'decide' anything. Your very existence (as an 'omniscient' being) has set in stone every act you would ever perform*.

*Again, this is not an argument against the level of freedom you had when those decisions were made - only an indication that they cannot be changed afterward.

But the future is immutable because of me - I wrote it.

(and see my mind change...here.)

I do think I understand your take on this, and it's interesting. It would imply that you made all of your decisions instantaneously when you began to exist (assuming you 'began' to exist - the OP doesn't seem to make assumptions about this being being 'eternal'.).

Hmm. I think I'd actually have to agree with you here. It seems my objections were more that it restricts said being from changing those decisions, changing it's 'mind', later. That wasn't the question presented.

It restricts me from changing my mind, but it was my choice.

Exactly. Mine was more a question of whether or not there would be a conflict when combining omniscience with omnipotence I suppose (which would presumably involve being able to change one's mind). Those I believe would be in genuine conflict, but that wasn't the question.

Well done.

-NoisForm

[Filthy Tugboat]

*This is simply not so, it appears. That you made a particular set of decisions at the moment you came into existence (presumably, all of your future decisions), and may not be able to change those decisions, says nothing about the freedom you possessed when you made those decisions.

Inability to change ones mind would be a massive restriction on free will. Also we can root this back to determinism where nothing has free will. If the options 'chosen' by an omniscient being were a result of who(what?) the being is which is not chosen, how is that free will. This is the same for humans, if everything we do is a result of previous events in our life (our genetics, our previous experiences, etc...), how is that free will? Is uit any different for an omniscient being? Is it even worse because he knows how he is going to react and also knows he has no power to change any of the future?

I think this is the problem, yes. From the moment of your existence, you would have perfect knowledge of all 'decisions' you would ever make, thus eliminating the possibility for you to ever make any other 'decision', to change your mind, to 'decide' anything. Your very existence (as an 'omniscient' being) has set in stone every act you would ever perform*.

*Again, this is not an argument against the level of freedom you had when those decisions were made - only an indication that they cannot be changed afterward.

And again, we come back to whether the decisions made were actually chosen or were just a result of who(what?) you are. If they were a result of something innate in you, something not chsen (like genetics for humans or even the impacts outside forces have on us and our resulting opinions), how is that free will?

But the future is immutable because of me - I wrote it.

I do think I understand your take on this, and it's interesting. It would imply that you made all of your decisions instantaneously when you began to exist (assuming you 'began' to exist - the OP doesn't seem to make assumptions about this being being 'eternal'.).

Hmm. I think I'd actually have to agree with you here. It seems my objections were more that it restricts said being from changing those decisions, changing it's 'mind', later. That wasn't the question presented.

The question presented was based on free will which does encompases whether or not the decisions made were chosen.

[charris]

You're saying that if I sit down and write a book, I exercise no free will since after the book is written I can't change it? Just because I know what the book says?

I think this is somewhat of a false analogy. We aren't talking about the free will of what you write about, we're talking about the free will of yourself. In fact, if you have omniscience, then you would already know what you've written before you sat down to write. You know the future of what you are going to do, as well as the people you write about. While I don't think it even makes sense to have omniscience, if you knew everything, that would mean you know everything about yourself, and how you will act in the future. An omniscience being would be one of the most limited beings in existence, simply for the fact that it already knows what it is going to do no matter what. This includes knowing about any attempt to change the future.

When you say, "...I exercise no free will since after the book is written I can't change it? Just because I know what the book says?" Yes, that would be the case with omniscience. You would have already known that you would try and change the book before you tried to change the book. If you somehow got around what you knew you were going to do, then that would mean you were previously mistaken, and that would mean you didn't have omniscience.

[Heal The World]

Based on this definition free will is being able to make choices without restriction. So the entirity of this argument is basically addressing the concept that omniscience is a restriction on freewill.

So if you know the infinite future including your own actions then can you make a choice? Is the knowledge of what you will do and why a restriction on how many 'choices' you can make? If you are physically capable of performing countless actions or making countless responses, does omniscience restrict your options to just one? If omniscience does restrict your options in every scenario to just one, how could that be considered free will?

------------
The basic misunderstanding of this argument is the assumption that Omniscient being known his very own future actions and choices. No. God is omniscient , omnipotent subjected to humans and all his creation. He knows all knowledge of his creation and the future, thats why we call him omniscient.


God doesn't already know certain actions of his future, rather he plans certain events then claim to know it because he decided to do them in future, that he will do by his own free-will itself. Just like you make a to-do list for today and you will follow that plan by your own free-will, yes you do have chances of failing on your plan since your not "perfect".

I hope the topic is clear.

[Filthy Tugboat]

Based on this definition free will is being able to make choices without restriction. So the entirity of this argument is basically addressing the concept that omniscience is a restriction on freewill.

So if you know the infinite future including your own actions then can you make a choice? Is the knowledge of what you will do and why a restriction on how many 'choices' you can make? If you are physically capable of performing countless actions or making countless responses, does omniscience restrict your options to just one? If omniscience does restrict your options in every scenario to just one, how could that be considered free will?

------------
The basic misunderstanding of this argument is the assumption that Omniscient being known his very own future actions and choices. No. God is omniscient , omnipotent subjected to humans and all his creation. He knows all knowledge of his creation and the future, thats why we call him omniscient.


God doesn't already know certain actions of his future, rather he plans certain events then claim to know it because he decided to do them in future, that he will do by his own free-will itself. Just like you make a to-do list for today and you will follow that plan by your own free-will, yes you do have chances of failing on your plan since your not "perfect".

I hope the topic is clear.

We are not necessarily talking about any specific God, the debate was structured so that we could test the compatibility of omniscience and free will. I shall continue replacing the word 'God' with 'omniscient being'. Any reference to other characteristics such as 'perfection', 'creation', 'omnipotence', 'he' or 'him' will be discarded as they do not apply to the scenario at hand.

Omniscience is defined as: The state or quality of knowing everything. With this definition in mind, why do you propose that an omniscient being would not know it's own future?