AWKWARD ZOMBIE

No theyre not. The choices already exists, and the divine being will know ahead of time which choices will be made and what the outcome will be.

I think you just said what he was saying.

No, he said that the person with said will would make the choices themselves, I say that all the options are false flags, since the divine being would know from the start that only one path was truly possible.

If there's only one timeline. And in that case it doesn't actually matter if God can see it anyways, does it? You already made the choice regardless if someone could see it. That's how a singular timeline works.

Doesnt matter. If a God is truly omniscient, he will know what choice you make, in every single timeline, no matter what the options are. If not, he's not omniscient.

If there are multiple timelines, then there are choices somewhere in there. That would be what makes the branches (or at least the more recent ones). An omniscient being has no effect on that.
If there's only one timeline, then there are predetermined choices/events that are acknowledged and decided upon in real time by the people involved, and are irrelevant before they have been decided upon, effectively making them choices as far as people are concerned. An omniscient being has no effect on that.

Bear in mind that we're discussing Omniscience, not Omnipotence.

...okay, am I just operating under some other sort of defintion of omniscience here? If you know all that was, is, and can be, you know those things, PERIOD. Thus, you will also know the outcome of any option given, and what option will be chosen.

Knowing about it doesn't mean you make it happen. It just means you're aware of it. Just like I'm aware that you get upset at pretty much any discussion of religion. It doesn't mean that my knowledge of that will force you to react that way. It just means that I'm aware that you'll choose to react that way.


This isn't intended to be a dig at you, by the way. Just observing the way you've reacted to any other religion-based conversation I've seen you participate in.

(I have to clock back on from my lunch now, so I'm stepping out for a few hours. If I reply to anything, it's going to be way late.)

Stranger I'm starting to really think you're not really reading what I, nor anyone else is saying because these are questions that were already answered pretty clearly.

Im reading them, but apparently not comprehending them correctly?

Omniscience is just watching. A being who is only omniscient, and cannot influence events at all, doesn't matter. Even if it knows everything there could ever be to know and then some, it has no effect on the choices you make.

If there is only one possible outcome, it doesn't matter that someone knows what the outcome is, it's going to happen anyways.

If there's multiple outcomes, it dosen't matter if someone knows what every single outcome is, because they've all happened, and what actually matters is which one that you* are in.

*you as in the entity who is in the specific timeline that you are currently experiencing, there are multiple "you"s in infinite timelines but the only one who actually matters to you is you, the other ones are basically separate people for all intents and purposes.

No, I got that, but if omniscience is possible, then there is still an entity that KNOWS what option you will choose, even if it doesnt decide it for you. That removes the aspect of free will. Like you said, if there's only one timeline, then there is no choice, there is only one possible solution. If there's multiple timelines, the *you* in each timeline doesnt have free will either, since the entity will know ahead of time what you will choose. As long as knowledge exists ahead of time what you will choose, free will doesnt exist, and never did.

Not directly no, but it does mean that there is a definite thing that he knows we are going to do, which is arguably even more important.

Let's say that I am standing at the end of a hallway and I have the choice to go left or right. God knows I will go right. If that is the case, then it seems to me it is already decided. There is no possible way for me to turn left, since that would contradict the omniscience of God. It might seem to us that there is a choice between going left or right since we are limited to our own non-omniscient view of the world

To me, free will is the ability to choose between one thing or another. If God already knows which thing we are going to do, in what way is that a choice?

(it probably doesn't help that I don't actually believe in free will even without a god involved haha)

This doesn't happen because the being is omniscient.

In a fixed timeline, where all events are predetermined, then it doesn't matter at all if someone knows what is going to happen because it's going to happen anyways. Even if the knowledge didn't exist, it would still happen.

It'd be a lot like watching a movie, actually. You can watch it, but you can't change it. Regardless of if you've seen it before, the same things are going to happen. Even if you know every single detail, it doesn't matter what you know because it's going to happen anyways.

In a multiple timeline, it doesn't matter still, because the entity does not know what you chose. The entity doesn't care, and it's not getting that information because it's not technically information that exists. There are a billion of you, in a billion timelines. All who made different choices. All of them are equally you in a different path. The entity has no way of going "oh yes THIS incarnation of this person will do this this and this" because to them you've done everything you could ever possibly do already. There is no alpha you, no main person, every timeline with you has the same you in a different scenario.

The difference between you is obvious, one is your consciousness, and the others are not. They're all the exact same person, but one just happens to be the one that you are.

In that scenario, the god has no way of predicting who will do what at what time in a very factual matter. According to it, you made multiple choices and had multiple actions in the exact same timeframe and then they all split off into different yous who did all other things and it goes on and on forever.

Now because it can see these things, doesn't mean that it seeing them ends free will. It means free will wouldn't exist with or without the god, because there's always a timeline where you did that certain thing. Now, it's much more free a will than a completely static timeline, but free will is not a concept that exists regardless of if there's a god or not.

Stranger's point is akin to Schroedinger's Cat and certain aspects of quantum physics. Observing a situation changes it fundamentally - in terms of the cat, it's more theoretical; in quantum physics, it's a literal consequence of whatever mechanism you observe a situation by.

Treating omniscience like a guy looking at a cat, it removes ambiguity. Where it could be argued that no specific assumption is true before observation, there's a definite truth post-observation. Same thing with free will - it crumbles as soon as there is a definite future.
If you try to argue this.... I don't really know what to say? You'd be getting free will mixed up with cognizance and that'd be silly.

Treating omniscience like a guy looking at a fucktiny particle, it gets less clear and honestly pretty irrelevant so I'm not getting into that. It boils down to something like 'reading a mind would have to in some way interact with the contents of the mind.'

EDIT: No yeah GM, reading back over your posts you're definitely getting free will mixed up with cognizance. Awareness and cognizance are very different from free will.