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From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Eric Kaylor)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: moRE omniscience and freedom
Message-ID: <396@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Oct-84 02:06:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: wucs.396
Posted: Fri Oct  5 02:06:58 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Oct-84 04:36:00 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 36

[the plot thickens...]

>From Daryel Akerlind (...ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!dsaker):
> But, Paul Torek, imagine the following:
> After contemplating my various courses of action, I choose what seems to me 
> to be the best.  Then I note that that was what I knew I would do.
> Having the desire to test this whole idea of preknowledge, I decide to
> follow my second best course of action -- that is, I choose to do something
> different from what I "know" I am going to do.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as *choosing* what you judge to be
the second best option.  Such would be an instance of irrationality not 
deserving of the name of choice.  Admittedly, the selection of the second
best option may sometimes *feel* free, but such feelings do no constitute
evidence.  For an excellent explanation, see Chin-Tai Kim, "Norms and 
Freedom", *The Philosophical Forum* 1981.  Now, if you are suggesting that
you change your mind about what is the best action in light of the need to
test this preknowledge thing, then (assuming you act on your new evaluation)
you didn't know what you were going to do (your belief was wrong).  "But 
suppose I'm a free being who really does know what he's going to do!"  Then,
because FREEDOM IMPLIES ACTING ON YOUR EVALUATION, it must be the case that
you don't change your evaluation.  Thus, a free being can be omniscient
only if it does not believe that it would be valuable to test this pre-
knowledge thing.  But of course, an omniscient being doesn't *need* to test!

> I can imagine various solutions to the above problem, but each of them
> conflicts with my sense of free will.  We can resolve these conflicts
> by denying me (my conception of) free will.  However, if I were 
> omnipotent, then I do not see how these conflicts could be resolved,
> because omnipotence would seem to guarantee (my conception of) free will.

What IS your conception of free will, and what would it be to "deny" it?

				--The aspiring iconoclast,
				Paul V Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047