Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site hou2a.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!hou2a!54375rr 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