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From: 54375rr@hou2a.UUCP (R.RENNINGER)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: moRE Omniscience and Freedom
Message-ID: <427@hou2a.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Oct-84 11:55:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou2a.427
Posted: Tue Oct  9 11:55:59 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Oct-84 04:15:20 EDT
References: <392@wucs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 32


>   An omniscient being could make a decision continuously....  
>   If the omniscient being has a certain minimum of rationality, 
>   it will never do what I do and change its mind, because it 
>   always (at least ever since it has been omniscient) knows
>   what the relevant facts are and what decision they justify.  
>   Therefore, each time the being remakes its decision, it
>   confirms the original one.  Far from being unfree, such a 
>   being seems to me to be perfectly free.
>   By the way, I agree that God must exist in time 
>   or at least "meta-time".
>   However, I do not see how this creates any logical difficulties.
>   
>				Paul V Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047

     I agree with the second sentence above, but I don't think
it leaves such a being with any capacity to make decisions.
A "decision" that merely reconfirms the being's pre-existing
knowledge of its future actions is indistinguishable from
passive contemplation of those future actions.
It isn't even right to call them "actions," since our
omniscient being never (at no time) decides to do them.

    One notion of freedom is "freedom from external control."
Is this what you are getting at?  If so, it is certainly true
that a being could be free in this sense, and yet have its
actions completely determined.  It's just that that kind of
freedom strikes me as rather sterile and machine-like.
I am inclined to think that human freedom goes beyond that.

				Bob Renninger
				hou2a!54375