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From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Eric Kaylor)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Omniscience and Freedom
Message-ID: <379@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Sep-84 16:01:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: wucs.379
Posted: Fri Sep 28 16:01:23 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Sep-84 09:09:49 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 20

[]

	I wonder if anyone has heard the paradox about the
	incompatibility between omnipotence and omniscience.
	It goes like this:  if you are omniscient, you already know
	everything you are going to do.  Therefore, you have no
	freedom to do anything else. --Bob Renninger	hou2a!54375rr

The "Therefore" is a non sequitur.  Forget about omniscience for a 
second; let's focus on "already knowing what you're going to do."  Does
such knowledge rule out freedom?  Not at all.  If you know that you
are going to do such-and-such at time t, and you rationally judge that
that's the best thing to do, and you act on this judgement at t, then
your doing such-and-such is free.  How many times do I have to tell you,
netland? -- the old "determinism" and "predestination" bugaboos are not
what they're cracked up to be.  Both are compatible with freedom.

				--Paul Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047
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