Re: Reflections on Free Will and Proposed Perfect Knowledge of God

On Jan 31, 3:04 pm, stevendaryl3...@xxxxxxxxx (Daryl McCullough)
wrote:
David says...

I've recently seen some definitions of "free will" which seemed to
miss the point--from my point of view. Here's what I mean by "free
will."

proposition E = "I'll get up at 8."
proposition C = "E and not-E are both possible"

C is what I mean by "free will."

(1) C.
(2) God knows everything.
(3) God knows C.

In short, either I don't have free will, or God doesn't know when I'll
get up tomorrow morning.

Why is that notion of free will worth having? If I always do what I
want to do, I'm predictable to anyone who knows precisely what I
want, but would I want to sometimes do what I *don't* want to do?

If at unpredictable times I drop to all fours and bark like a dog,
then that makes me unpredictable, but in what sense does that have
anything to do with "free" or "will"? I think most people would
view it as a mental disorder rather than an exercise of free will.

What would bother me is to *want* to do something but to find my
body doing something completely different, such as walking off a
cliff. When my body does what I want, I don't see any reason to
complain. So why should anyone want to have "free will" in the
sense of being unpredictable? If I want to be unpredictable, I
can always use a random number generator to decide what to do
next.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

I don't think free will is the same as unpredictability.

I might be predictable for you because I have declared you my will and
you know I never change it, and still have free will.

I must be predictable for God because God knows everything and still
have free will.

I would say that to have free will I must not be predictable on the
basis of causal laws and facts other than my will itself.

And why should we worry about free will and not only about physical
freedom?

Well, that's a perfectly legitimate different question.

Regards


.

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