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Up to this point I have made no claim about any individual or parties having "control" of other persons. The question at hand is really whether individuals have meaningful control of themselves. Your example doesn't make it clear to me how one could have meaningful control of their future if their future actions are as finished or complete as their past actions.
Your question that I addressed was:
Originally Posted by Cerpin Taxt View Post
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I think the existence of a putative being with foreknowledge necessarily excludes the possibility of meaningful free will.
While I addressed that (foreknowledge + free will) squarely, I think your real question is "Can there be free will when the creator is omnipotent and omniscient?"
That is a different question and I think a more difficult one. I also think it difficult for science types to accept free will given such a creator.
Not being a scientist I may not be able to express this adequately, but here's what I think the difficulty is for science types:
1. Belief in cause and effect.
2. Preservation of information (or whatever it's called), or something along those lines.
I saw a TV show on this, I had never heard of it before. It seemed an extension of conservation of mass. Anyhoo, it went something like this: There was a beaker of water. The water in the beaker was vigorously stirred and a drop of ink was put into it. In a moment the ink had completely dispersed into the water. It was said that in the future, given enough info such as the speed and movement of the molecules etc, that the info regarding the drop of ink (when, where and how much etc.) could be known. The information is retained forever if you know enough and how to decipher it.
Well, it seems to me, a non-scientist, that if we can tell what accurately happened in the past based on today's info we should be able to tell what will happen in the future using the same principals (cause and effect?).
Accordingly, given a creator who is omnipotent and omniscient, and when they create something understanding it to down to minutest level (subatomic or whatever) with full knowledge of how it will play out in great detail over vast amounts of time, isn't all that is to come preordained or predetermined? If so, then there is no free will as we understand the term.
Hopefully the above isn't too unintelligible.
It is a counter-intuitive idea, to be sure, and perhaps a good subject for another thread. I really mean that,too -- I'm not trying to be dismissive. I just don't see where it is immediately relevant here.
Well I often hear people say they have a problem wrapping their head around free will and foreknowledge. For me it's the concept of infinity. So, outside of that similarity, no, it probably isn't relevant here.
Fern