Omniscience and Free Will Coexistence

Author: Mhykiel

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Mhykiel
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A Mathematical experiment was conducted to discern the emergence of time from entangled particles. I think it offers insight into the coexistence of omniscience, predeterminism, and free will.

Take for instance the Young's double slit experiment. A photon is shot, one at a time, towards two slits. It is impossible to tell which slit the photo passes through without collapsing the wave function with further measurement. (rough description google can explain more)

At some level there is a "choice" that occurs that is un-discernible through cause-effect mechanisms. Now ignore the word "choice" it's no one of cognitive behavior but a result randomly chosen between two binary states (left slit right slit) unencumbered by the environment.

It's suggested that in the "Toy Universe" Experiment that an observer entangled with the environment observing the photon would be left with a random occurrence.



But that to a "super-observer", an observer not quantumly entangled or part of the system would observe a series of temporal events that would appear determinable.

If an Omniscient being did exist, if they were not a part of this universe quantumly entangled with it. They could have an experience of time different from ours. But almost certainly experience the passage of our time differently. And view it as predetermined and known while.. we inside this temporal universe inside the same entangled mess, would discern choice as possible.

Ergo I think Omniscient Super-Observer and an free willed internal to this universe observer are, thanks to a kind of temporal relativity, not mutually exclusive.

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We certainly have an experience of having will. We have the experience of having choice. Augustine would agree with you, that though we have free will, God knows what we are going to do in advance.

I acknowledge that Augustine was a brilliant theologian and philosopher, but I am not sure I agree with him on this.

The kicker here is omnipotence. Omnipotence literally means that God does everything. Omnipresence follows from the idea that God does everything... God is everywhere in everything moving it all along. Omniscience, of course follows as well, because whatever is known by the one who is everywhere, moving everything, and created the knowledge.



So I lean more away from us having any true free will. Besides seemingly flying in the face of these prescribed qualities of God, it also seems to imply that human beings defy causality. I don't know about that.

Maybe the free will we do have is really the choice of whether or not we accept God's will as being true, and our own will as being false. But even then, coming to that choice was predetermined.



Yeah, I don't personally believe in free will.
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@Mopac
Thank you for the reply. As my post illustrated to, I don't think it has to be a question a one or the other. I don't think omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive.

And that, as with the the photon electing right or left slit, inside the this timeline of entangled observers that path would be random. That maybe some choices could be made that are not the sum of causal interactions, free from cause and effect. ( I don't negate influence of nurture nature ect..) But that a free choice could be made. And yet to a super observer that free choice would appear predetermined.

I understand you might say free will doesn't exist because it's illusion brought about by a lack of omnipotent knowledge. However I think the experiment I showed is interesting in that, it's not a lack of knowing the timeline or the outcome, That either path of the photon would appear predetermined to a super observer because they are not quantumly entangled in the same temporal region.

It's relative not exclusive to either perspective.
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If there is anything that has been proven through experiments in physics, it is that it is impossible to isolate all variables. I don't buy into the idea that chaos proves that there is anything truly random in the universe.

Neither do I believe that chaos proves that the electron chooses the slit that it goes through.


I understand that you don't think freewill and omniscience are mutually exclusive. I am leaning to the idea that they are, but I also acknowledge that I could be wrong. I'm not sure it is possible to know.


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@Mopac
How would you describe the results of Young's double slit experiment?



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@Mhykiel
The experiment you are describing was actually a later experiment. The main thing that I believe can be drawn from that experiment is the necessity of operationalism in the scientific process. What we see has a lot to do with the formulas we are using and such. 


But as for the unpredictability of anything, I would say this is because of chaos. Local variables, non-local variables. Things we can't possibly account for. This is why the most precise formulas deal in probabilities rather than exactitudes. The chaos factor.


But I do not for a second believe that our inability to perfectly make sense of things is proof that causality is somehow overridden by people simply because they are too haughty to accept that they too are subject to the laws of physics.

Which is of course, what I think of the matter, and I could be wrong.

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@Mopac
Haha a little cartoon for the layman.....easy to get.



Omniscience and free will work because of the way creation is put together, while everything arises from one single omnipresent Reality that is observing, the created soul which left the Creator has an unlimited potential of choices that were not possible to dictate as the video explains, so it doesn't necessitate that an omniscient God predetermined all our choices (free will), or better put our "own will". I say God doesn't know EVERYTHING in advance rather God knows everything as it's happening, big difference....because of God's omnipresent nature.
To add to the short video above the Creator departed within each soul a unique creative drive and expression so that essentially that soul will become it's own mini-creator in the environment that was predestined for it in the lower worlds. Because of the nature of our unique creative abilities and imagination, it is impossible to predetermine what a creative, thinking, intelligent being will choose at any given moment given all these potentials and possibilities. 

All in all this is what the Creator has invested in all of this, because God experiences everything right through your channel of awareness and it's something God loves because you have the ability to become that which God did not know before hand until the moment you put your intentions and actions to a certain path or choice. It's actually really cool, and TBH it is weird holding a Calvinists view of the world and strips individuality and free will away. While we do all come from the same Source, we develop our own personalities through our perceptions and experiences essentially becoming what we want through an unlimited field of potential.
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@EtrnlVw

"Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.
Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory."

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@Mopac
YAYYY, it's post scriptures time lol....

James 1

2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Now let me ask you this, what is there to consider or adhere about any of the above if God already dictated EVERYTHING? It doesn't mean anything and would be not applicable or relevant to a free individual if God somehow predestined all things would it?
The soul is responsible for what it chooses in a dualistic environment, that was NOT preordained. That is why we have instruction, warnings and blessings.
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@EtrnlVw
Maybe these instructions are actually part of the deterministic process.

Materialists like to think that what goes on in the mind and soul are not physical, but these things clearly are linked causally with the so called "material" world. What this means is that the mind and soul are a part of physics.
And yes, physicists know this, which is why we have the internet spying on everyone and collecting data.. for science!

But the point being that even if we are making choices, our choices are the result causal forces acting on us. It was causal forces that brought us into accepting God to begin with.

It is also written..


"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."

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@Mhykiel
Good argument, but a little above most of the posters here.

I have debated many time that free will is not violated by omniscience. But going at it from the idea of quantum entanglement is something I never did.

Of course, this is just one of the technical scientific ways of saying that the omnipresent and eternal nature of God make human free will and God's omniscience not mutually exclusive.
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@ethang5
I like to use the ol fish tank/aquarium analogy or the "pets" analogy I made up to show how an omniscient/omnipresent  "Creator" could be compatible with creatures that have their own will. It is a bit simple-minded but it would go something like the following.

Pretend you planned on setting up an aquarium for a period of time in your house or room and you begin to construct an aquatic environment to place some new fish in when it's all ready so that they can play and have a life while you observe them in the surroundings you personally created.
So you begin to assemble the aquarium, you set up the aquascapes just the way you desire.....make sure the filtration is adequate so that the fish don't die consuming their own wastes. You provide an oxygen source, adjust the water parameters and regulate the temperatures just right ect ect and now you wait for the aquarium and water levels to stabilize. When this is all ready now you will add the fish and they will be free to act and choose however they wish inside this beautiful paradise you've created for them and you will watch over them and make sure they have all the things they need to have a little life.
Here are some implications to this....

You are the Master and controller of the entire aquarium and the whole environment
You know everything that happens in the aquarium through observation at all times
You can determine in advance the outcome or course of events of something simply by observing what is taking place
You can predict and even know how some fish will act and how they may behave with others
You can do whatever you want to the aquarium AND the fish at any given time
You can create obstacles, you can create disaster or comfort
You can add fish or take away fish
You can bless or punish any fish based on their behavior
You can dismantle or deconstruct this aquarium at any time, so you are perfectly aware of both the beginning and ending
You can send "Divine" fish to foretell events and to prophesy what may occur in the future of the fish tank lol (jk)
You can interfere in just about any way imaginable without having to interfere with the fishies direct will

This is all without having to predestine or predetermine how the fish will act, behave or respond to any given situation, it takes nothing away from your complete control, omniscience or omnipresence or your creation. You are their Creator and you know all and see all, you know their beginning and ending and you are their Master. This is the same with creation and souls and how God creates and establishes (predestines) the world and our environment, then places free souls within it to act, choose and behave however they wish through their own perceptions, desires and creative imaginations/abilities.
God is in complete control without ever having to dictate every action of a free creature or take away its own will....It's kind of a goofy way to articulate this but I believe it works and is pretty fool-proof. I don't think it is necessary to force a Calvinists interpretation that God has preordained every single thing to accept God as sovereign, and TBH it makes no sense and does not correlate with our own experience realistically and why we are responsible for what we do in a dualistic environment. I can concede that God is within all things because of His omnipresent nature but that's different than predestination, God can be within all things as they unfold, as they take place and yet still have complete control over the universe and its ending.

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I think it's unfortunate that anyone who believes in God's absolute sovereignty and omnipotence gets accused of being a calvinist as if he was the one who came up with any of this, and it isn't something that can be concluded by reading the scriptures. In fact, I know that this argument predates Calvin by a great deal because I am more familiar with earlier theologians than I am with later ones. I can't say that I really know Calvin, only what people say about him. 

But I do know what scripture says, and I think scripture makes it very clear that God doesn't simply know everything that is going on. God knows everything, including what will be in 10, 30, 100, 1,0000, etc. Years.

Wasn't it God who hardened the heart of pharaoh?







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"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

That is King James, but I will quote 2 other translations of the same passage that make it clearer

"Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be"

"You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed."

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@Mopac
So if you want to go to heaven then you better hope like hell that's what god planned for you because there is no other way. Good luck.
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@disgusted
"What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?"

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@Mopac
Moses is a fictional character and is spoken to by a fictional god in a very old book of fiction. Do you perchance have any contact with reality and truth? If so please rely on those when you post.Or maybe you would prefer that we all started posting quotes from comic books.
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@disgusted
You don't even believe in The Truth, because you deny God, and that is what God means.

And in the context of what I'm posting, I am showing real biblical evidences that God as described in the bible has total influence over what happens. This evidence is obviously not directed at you, because you don't really believe anything except yourself. 

The Ultimate Reality is what God means. If you deny God, you admit you are playing the part of the fool. You, after all, are saying that there is no truth.


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@Mopac
That's what you're saying. Your strawman is refuted.
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@disgusted
I am clearly pointing out the straw man you are making.

You aren't even trying to hide it. You use the word god when I am talking about God. They mean something different.

The Ultimate Reality. That is what God means.

You aren't talking about qhat I'm talking about. You aren't even on topic. Go be a crazy loser somewhere else or make yourself useful. It isn't that hard.



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@Mopac
Zeus is a God ergo Zeus is the ultimate reality, your argument is asinine.
#22
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@disgusted
There is no such thing as a God, there is only One God.


Your argument is having the English comprehension of a 12 year old.


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@Mopac
It's all you can understand, you think that an English language convention makes your god real if you give it other names. Just grow up, your attempted argument is asinine.
The capital L in Leprechaun makes Leprechauns real in your world, hoorah. Tell me now all about Leprechauns, I grow weary of your stories regarding your ultimate absurdity.
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@disgusted






Definition of God courtesy Merriam-webster....


capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality



And this is the only God I recognize.


Now if you have nothing to add to this topic, can you be a loser somewhere else? You are unteachable, so I'm not interested in hearing what you have to say.


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@Mopac
Who cares which of the millions of Gods you recognise, because I used a capital G they are all the ultimate reality. Do you see yet just how asinine your non argument is?
#26
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@disgusted
That's not my argument, but you don't really care about what I have to say.

Believe what you want to believe.

#27
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@Mopac
YOU don't have anything to say, Merriam Webster says everything for you, an English language convention defines your god.
#28
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@disgusted

My argument is older than the English language.

Your argument is theophobia.
#29
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@Mopac
You're kidding yourself.

God

Origin

Old English, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch god and German Gott .

#30
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@disgusted
My argument is older than any of these languages, theophobe.