Never heard of it, but I'm assuming it's just a list of elements.

I'm not using the same x and y. I'm using different x and y.

If a particular process can exist as a 2-tuple, then that process can exist within a 3-tuple (or a 4-tuple, etc).

I like how you removed the word "finite."

It's becoming very clear that Madnak is way out of his league on this topic

The positions are getting increasingly incoherent.

Aren't you a physics guy? Or have at least a remote background in physics?

More importantly, have you ever bothered to look it up?

Yeah. That doesn't work with n-tuples. You can't keep changing n and pretend like you're talking about the same thing the entire time.

You cannot contain all finite information while keeping n finite. It just doesn't work. You have to have some process by which n goes to infinity.

Think of it like this: Every positive integer is finite. But an n-tuple cannot contain all positive integers.

I've taken basic physics (semester 1 classical mechanics). I like physics. I definitely do not have "a background" in physics or mathematics.

Okay, assuming I understand what you mean... If a process can exist as an n-tuple, then a process can exist within an (n+1)-tuple. If there's something wrong with that based on the nature of an n-tuple, then we can use vectors of n dimensions instead (if a vector of n dimensions is a process, then a vector of >n dimensions can contain that process).

I didn't say all finite information. I said any finite information.

It makes sense from a dualist perspective. The "me" that is making decisions is something more than (other than?) the "me" that is the collection of bits and pieces of the universe. Now what precisely that "outside observer" happens to be is unknown. But if the Platonic me is that which is making the observations (that is, the thing which is making manifest particular states as opposed to continuing to exist in simultaneous quantum states), this would still be consistent with free will (I think).

I'm glad you didn't burn down your house. It would have been no fun trying to explain this to people.

This would explain why you're not making any mathematical sense, or even coming close to it.

Not really. You're not saving yourself. You're actually restricting yourself to a smaller collection of objects.

Vectors in n-dimensions are just n-tuples endowed with the ability to add and subtract, and multiply by scalars.

It still doesn't work. Finite is far more complicated than you realize. There is no n-tuple that can contain any finite collection of positive integers.

If that's true then the information in any n-tuple should be containable within an (n+1)-tuple.

Finite information, not a finite collection of positive integers.

Assuming that a finite representation for a collection of positive integers is possible, then that representation should be encodable in an n-tuple.

[quote:me]There is no chance this can make sense, in the end. Either you make choices because of nothing (free will) or you do because of something (determinism) [/quote]

Determinism is a corollary of cause and effect being law rather than just a guideline.

In other words, cause and effect being law is sufficient for determinism. I can't think of any way in which it (cause and effect) is not required.

So, we can, for argument's purpose, exclude all cases in which cause and effect being perfect does not lead to determinism. This reduces the case I am arguing, which I am fine with.*

Free will requires that cause and effect are just a guideline. This implies randomness. The problem is that "I choose because of x" is meaningless if it is caused through randomness. "x" being anything at all other than vacuousness.

*focus here if you don't agree.

But you have to be very clear on what you mean for it be "contained within." Does the order need to be maintained? Are you allowed to insert the n+1st value in wherever you want, or does it require a canonical embedding? Is there something special about the n that you started with?

Your argument has repeatedly fallen apart when pushed for details. It's unfortunate for you that the details matter in this type of argument. Simply pointing to a physicist who writes a popular science book that makes some sort of assertion about the nature of information does not fly as some sort of justification as to why that position makes sense. Have you read the book? Did you understand it? Do you know what observations have led him to this conclusion?

Your "information" at this point is in the form of rational numbers. Positive integers are a subset of the rational numbers.

This is a different statement than what you had before. You are now fixing your collection first, and then asserting that this particular information could be encoded into an n-tuple. Before, you had

This is false. An n-tuple can only store up to n pieces of information. There are finite numbers greater than n, so you could not store any "finite arrangement of information" in an n-tuple without changing the n over and over again.

I told you so is coming to mind.

Short leash and all of that jazz.

I don't know what you mean by "cause and effect being perfect." Do you mean that every effect is fully computable/predictable given a full knowledge of the state of the universe immediately preceding the moment of the effect?

You're also doing the same thing madnak did, which is to say that everything that is not determined is "random." But then when you use the word "random" you mean it to imply things in the coin-flipping sense of random (which has other implications).

For a decision to be not determined simply means that there is not enough information in the universe to perfectly predict the decision.

Yes, typically the arguments goes towards some sort of time discussion. But I have yet to see one that has been satisfying. There still are too many issues.

But the issue is that the effect (the choice made) precedes the cause (the free will agent). So although the claim is that actions are supposedly not dependent on the universe "now", as it is in determinism, there is something other than the free will agent that allows for the future to be "determined" as it would have to be in order for God to know before the agent exists.

I understand what you are saying, but the problem becomes, what cards are actually available to me. If God knows that tomorrow I will pick the "bagel" card, then was the "toast" card in the actual range of possibilities?

If there is only one actual world, the one that God knows, then there are no actual worlds in which I can pick the "toast" card, which means that I do not have the ability to choose otherwise, therefore I do not have free will.

However, God sees the game as if it's already over. That is, he sees the stacks of cards that correspond to people's decisions, and when he lines up those decisions in time, he can "watch" the universe play itself out. The analogy gets a little difficult when you insert the fact that God is monkeying around by influencing certain decisions in time, because the question ends up being "Did God override free will?" whenever he acts. So he's interacting "in time" with everyone else, but is also able to see what it looks like after everyone has finished making their decisions. This is where things get hand-wavy.[/QUOTE]

Durka,

Could you look at these arguments and tell me what you think? EDF stands for "Eternal Definite Foreknowledge", in other words God Knows the future exhaustively and the future contains no possibilities.

I would need context. Where is this from?

A very short essay from here:

http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/essay...hical-support/

I have looked at these a lot, and have not found anything that I would say could refute all of them, and none of them depend on God being "inside" of time. But I am not a philosopher, so I am curious at to your opinion.

Yeah, that's the weird time sense where you wave your hands and since we only exist "in time" we experience our decisions in a time-like manner. But since God exists outside of time, he views the decisions differently. After all, what do "before" and "after" and "now" mean to something that is outside of time (or alternatively phrased, exists at all points in time simultaneously)?

Again, I completely agree that there is a large amount of hand-waving in this position.

It's kind of a mad-lib. You can make your decisions "in advance" of the story, and then watch your choices play out in the telling of the story. Of course, mad-libs often end up being nonsense stories, so that analogy falls apart rather fast. How do you actually make a decision "in advance" for an unspecified situation? I have no idea.

The "evidence" of the choices that you didn't make would have to look something like the pile of cards that you didn't choose. I don't know what that would look like in reality, but in the analogy there seems to be a way of understanding it.

Given Laplace's demon, yes. IRL, not really, but it doesn't really matter to my view. It might matter to your view, I think.

I mean it in the more pure sense. A coin's landing is detemined by rotation, air pressure (including variations in wind pressure) and gravity. These things exist in the physical world and are determined. Free will requires randomness, not uncertainty in measurement or prediction.

??!!?? There is a difference between determining (predicting and/or understanding and/or viewing) and determined (being caused by a previous state). Despite that lack of clarity of the English language in differentiating the two, I hope you can see the difference.

This is Lutheranism, right?

We'll just put it aside for now. It was a question seeking clarity on what you were asserting. If this becomes an issue, we can always come back to it and look more deeply at it.

Yeah... this is definitely where we're hung up. Instead of "coin-flipping" we can just take "quantum spin" which is about as purely random as anything we can possibly conceive of given our current understanding of the universe.

Are you still going to assert that free will requires "randomness" in this sense?

The position that compatibilism is false equates the two. That is, if you can perfectly predict every event (ie, capable of determining the outcome of any situation given complete information about the state of the universe), then the outcome is determined (ie, it's the only thing that can possibly happen). The God conversation is an example of this. If God perfectly knows all of our decisions, then the claim is that this is determinism.

Also, just for emphasis:

should really read

This is to prevent confusion. There can be necessary conditions for the effect (I can't choose a bagel unless I have a bagel) but they may not be sufficient conditions to be the cause (the existence of a bagel in the pantry does not force me to choose it).

I want to be very careful and explicit with "cause and effect" vs. "determinism." They are similar-sounding on the surface, but represent very different concepts.

Meh, I have a hard time parsing that argument since it seems to depend on a number of specialized concepts to some particular form of christianity with which I'm not all that familiar.

My intuition is that it's just fancy handwaving.

I'm always extremely skeptical of fast 'deductive' arguments like that without supporting prose to clearly explain all of the steps involved.

I am not quite sure what specialized concepts you are referring to. Did you read the full essay I linked? As I explained, EDF just means that God knows the future completely and that there are no possibilities.

What I like about the arguments is the simplicity. I am not quite sure how much more explanation there could be. I thought the essay went over everything.

And this is not specific to any form of christianity, but if you want to associate it with something it would probably be associated with the theology of open theism.

As far as "handwaving", I don't think so. I have spent quite some time and don't see any handwaving. I have presented these to other theists that hold to the classical view of God's omniscience and it's compatibility and I can never get anyone to address them. If these arguments have any weak points I know that you can point them out. So that is what I was hoping for.

Are you referring to EDF? This is actually a very commonly held view of God's omniscience that spreads across a lot of denominations.

The first premise of the first argument is false. The effect does not precede the cause.

It's an equivocation on 'precedes'. There.

The second premise is no good either. What sense of actuality/possibility are they using? What sense of definiteness/indefiniteness are they using? Do you see why I said that there are unexplained concepts?

First premise of 2nd argument begs the question (it's basically Aristotle and then Aquinas on the cosmological argument for the "prime mover"). Why must a contingent thing be caused? This goes back to Aristotle's metaphysics on coming-to-be and passing-away. There's no obvious absurdity to assert the contrary: some contingent things are uncaused.

I am not sure how you can say that the definiteness of all events does not precede their occurrence. If at time t nothing existed and God knew that occurrence X would happen definitely at time t+y, then I am not sure how we are equivocating here.

I guess that I can see what you are saying. I think that this could be cleared up though. I have always took it at more of a face value with common definitional meanings.