On Jan 8, 12:29 am, "Denis Loubet" <dlou...@io.com> wrote:

"David Schwartz" <dav...@webmaster.com> wrote in message

No. It's a perfectly rational observation concerning the details of the
story.

Not at all. That a person has functioning lungs and vocal cords and
the like doesn't make them capable of *meaning* anything at all.

Now the only possible curb on the guy's tongue would be the threat of
physical violence. If the crowd found out he was a fan of the Jesus
character, then he might have been attacked. But LOTS of people all over
the
world risk physical violence from what they say each and every day. So
what
stopped the Peter character?

The laws of physics and Peter's present state, just as they prevent
you from turning invisible or being on Mars tomorrow. You simply lack
the knowledge to realize that the laws of physics and the state of the
universe prevent it. God, in this story, has that knowledge. So he can
see that.

Some things are impossible to anything with free will. The more
knowledge you have, the more things you can see are impossible. If god
has more knowledge than you, he might see that certain things are in
fact impossible that you cannot see.

I have all
the items necessary to be capable of proclaiming that Jesus Christ is
my lord and savior, but I can't actually do it because I don't believe
that and can't even conceive of any way that I could ever believe it.

You just said it.

By that argument, if I say "it is not true that Mitt Romney is god", I
have proclaimed Mitt Romney is god.

I know, that was a cheap shot, but true nontheless.

Nope false. Not that it matters.

You are actually wrong
that you CAN'T say it, because obviously you just did. I know you don't
believe it, but you nevertheless uttered the words as an example thus
destroying the point you were trying to make.

Nonsense.

Besides, the Peter character was determined to say something that he DID
believe, and that he agreed with, and that he thought was vitally
important.

So what? Suppose you take the battery out of my car. I may be
determined to drive my son to school tomorrow, and as far as everyone
but you knows, I am perfectly capable of doing that. Nevertheless, you
are capable of figuring out that I will not drive him to school
tomorrow.

You can even phrase this as a decision. I might or might not
spontaneously decide to go to Burger King to get breakfast while I'm
driving my son to school tomorrow. To everyone but you, this appears
to be something I am capable of doing and might, or might not, do. But
since you know my car is broken, you alone know that it is impossible
for me to decide that.

Your objection is thus irrelevant, since you're talking about saying
something you DON'T believe. Sure, if you have integrity, that might
prevent
you from saying what you don't believe. But what stops you from saying
what
you DO believe, especially if you think it's vitally important that you
say
it?

Again, the laws of physics and the state of a person's body. They set
boundaries on what a person can choose to do. God, in the story
knowing more about these two things than others, can see that certain
things are as impossible as turning invisible, even though they seem
possible to others.

Free will always means you can choose from between the possible
outcomes. It is not completely worthless just because none of the
possible outcomes include particular outcomes.

But the particular outcome in question was perfectly possible.

How do you know that? Is it possible for you to proclaim that you
believe in Zeus and Baal?

Irrelevant even though I can certainly proclaim it. Here, allow me: "I
Believe in Zeus and Baal!" The word sequence was easy to write.

You didn't answer my first question. How do you know that it is
perfectly possible?

What is relevant is that I can proclaim that I'm an atheist. Especially
since it's true, and I think it's important I point it out.

What was stopping the Peter character from proclaiming that he was with
the
Jesus character, since according to the story, he was?

The laws of physics. For example, suppose god knew that he was about
to have a heart attack. In that case, he could know that it was
impossible for Peter to do as he intended.

Suppose god understood
human psychology and the state of Peter's brain that he could work out
that his claimed proclamation was actually impossible.

Your argument that it is possible is an argument for ignorance.

Do you have any reason to suspect the Peter character, if real, was
unable
to utter a specific sequence of phonemes?

Yes, that god said he was.

You
don't know of anything that would stop it, so you consider it
possible.

I consider it possible that you can talk. Is that unreasonable?

No. However it's entirely possible that I am mute. You've never heard
me talk. Your assumption is reasonable, but could also be incorrect.

Suppose I'm not mute, but I'm suffering from a cancer on my vocal
chords that will require their removal tomorrow or I will die. You
might reasonably think that it's possible that I will yell that I am
happy next week. The doctor might realize that it is impossible for me
to do so. This despite my intention to do so now and despite no
limitations on my free will.

Perhaps with additional information, you might be able to
show that it's actually not possible.

The Peter character was described as being able to talk. If you want to
put
forth the contention that the Peter character was mute, can you back it
up?

I am not saying he was mute. I am saying that his state and the laws
of physics could have been such that he could not have done other than
he did, despite his free will.

If I'm out of corn flakes, I can't choose to have them for
breakfast,
even though I normally can. That is not a limitation on my free
will.
Free will is the ability to chose among possible outcomes, it is not
restricted by reductions or changes in possible outcomes.

According to the story, the character wasn't being strangled, or
struggling
with a gag, or choking on his food. There was no physical impediment
to
explain his inability to carry out his free will decision.

There is no reason to think there weren't physical impediments to his
carrying out that decision.

Well, since the story in the bible clearly describes the Peter character
as
being perfectly able to talk, and in fact responding verbally to
questions
put to him, I put it to you that you're straying outside the scope of the
story in question.

You're being incredibly dense. Suppose someone discovered a
homosexuality gene. All who have the gene become homosexual and none
who don't do. I doubt such a thing exists, but it's certainly not
impossible. Now, take a 3 year old who has no idea what his sexual
orientation is. That person could take that child's blood, test for
the gene, and "prophecy" that he would become homosexual.

Now, suppose you know nothing about genes. You assume sexual
orientation is an act of free will. To you, this prophecy is just as
amazing as god's prophecy in this story.

The laws of physics and our physical state may limit choices that
lacking knowledge of those laws and that state may appear to be within
the scope of free will. We can only guess at the scope of free will.
There is no reason a being with superior knowledge couldn't 'guess'
better.

I cannot decide to murder my wife because
of things you could call physical impediments (the structure of my
brain, the way my neurons are wired, and so on) even though there
aren't chains holding me back.

Those are chains holding you back.

But this is not analogous to the situation the Peter character was in.
Peter, according to the story, made his decision to not deny the Jesus
character, and stated it clearly. Yet found himself denying the Jesus
character regardless.

Perhaps that change was inevitable due to chains holding him back. How
can you know there were no such chains?

The analog to this situation would be if you stated your heartfelt desire
never to harm your wife, but then minutes later found yourself murdering
your wife regardless. (I don't like using examples this personal, but you
brought it up.)

Right. And it's possible that somebody might know that this would
happen as well. In principle, a psychotic break could be predictable
to someone with sufficient knowledge and training. This might be
equally surprising as god's prediction.

Suppose (this is silly, but not in principle impossible) some people
could see UV and suppose further that a person emitted a burst of UV
light three minutes before a psychotic break. Such a person could make
"prohecies" fully as amazing as god's in this story if you had no idea
about the UV light.

His situation is not analogous to running out of corn flakes. He had
the
corn flakes.

We don't know whether he had the corn flakes or not.

According to the story he had the power of speech. That doesn't seem
utterly
unreasonable to me.

The power of speech is not all that is required to say a particular
thing.

One hypothetical situation to illustrate this would be if the
god-character
were to whisper in your ear what you are going to do from moment to
moment
over the course of a day. Somehow, no amount of will on your part
would
allow you to deviate from the decisions and actions described to
you.
I
estimate it would take a very short time for you to conclude you're
nothing
but a puppet.

There are two possible answers to this. One is -- perhaps god can't
do
that.

It would seem a snap for an omniscient, omnipotent being.

But that's not this case.

What? I was under the impression we were talking about the common
attributes
associated with the Christian god.

No, we're talking about a single act of prophecy and whether it's
consistent with free will.

Perhaps he can only foresee events that are unavoidable. There
are certainly some events that are unavoidable, even though they
involve some human action.

Well, that eliminates omniscience. Which god are we talking about?

We're talking about one prediction.

No, we're talking about the ramifications of the supposed qualities of
the
god named God.

You are reinventing history. Here is what you said and what originally
prompted my response:

<> For instance, an event from the bible: If the god issues a
prophecy that a
<> specific individual will deny the god three times, of what possible
<> value is free will if the individual cannot then act contrary to
<> the prophecy?

This says nothing about omniscience, ominpotence, or the "supposed
qualities of the god named god".

It was your claim that this single
act of prophecy makes free will of no value.

If you want to change
your claim, that's fine. I might even agree with the new claim. But
the old one is wrong.

Another is that perhaps that does make you a puppet. But god doesn't
do that.

Well, according to the bible, it did.

In this case, he did. So maybe in this case he made someone a puppet.
That doesn't contradict free will.

Yes it does. Puppets are not granted the quality of free will, pretty
much
by definition.

Because god made one person a puppet for a few minutes, free will is
of no value?

You may have free will even though the government can arrest you and
put you in jail at any time. So long as they don't, you are still free
to make decisions and act on them.

Did you mean to say you may NOT have free will if the government can
arrest
you? I disagree, you always have a choice, even if they incarcerate you.

No, I mean you do have free will even though the government can arrest
you.

Granted, the options to choose from are more limited, but your ability to
choose among them is unaffected.

Well, I don't agree. You can't point a gun to someone's head, say
"your money or your life", and then claim they chose to give you the
money of their own free will.

But in any event, you totally missed my
point.

Just because god can take away or limit your free will doesn't mean
you don't have it.

Free will *never* includes the ability to choose
the impossible and what's possible or impossible for you can be
changed by all sorts of things.

The same would be true if someone
invented a mind control device.

That's a different ball of wax from incarceration because you no longer
have
any options whatsoever. You robotically carry out whatever the device
tells
you to do, and have no will of your own.

And you would still have free will so long as the device was not
actually used.

And if it was used for you, for a few seconds, to
change one decision, that wouldn't make free will entirely meaningless
or useless. It would simply mean that one decision wasn't an act of
free will.

Yes, each time he used the device you
would be deprived of free will, but that wouldn't somehow deprive you
of free will even when the device wasn't used.

True, nor would I suggest that it would.

But that's what you're doing.

But an omniscient god possesses it's omniscience 24/7. In effect, it's
knowledge of everything that will happen serves as a continuous and
neverending application of a mind-control ray.

Now you're changing your argument. Again, you said:

! For instance, an event from the bible: If the god issues a prophecy
that a
! specific individual will deny the god three times, of what possible
value is
! free will if the individual cannot then act contrary to the
prophecy?

What does this have to do with 24/7 omniscience?

How is this at all
like knowledge of everything?

"Exist apart from god"? What do you mean?

If you take a drug that puts you to sleep, you temporarily lose the
ability to exercise your free will. That doesn't somehow make such
drugs impossible or mean you don't have free will when you aren't
taking them.

Oh. Granted, but I'm not sure how this applies.

The point is, even if god can take your free will away, and even if he
occasionally does so, that doesn't make free will useless or
meaningless.

Of course. But I thought I was the one arguing for the ineffectiveness
of
free will. ;-)

You are arguing that somehow this one specific case of prophecy
negates freewill. I don't agree. There are many ways (at least in
principle) you can have specific cases of prophecy without negating
free will generally.

I don't say that it negates free will either, all I'm saying is that the
story does not support the Christian contention that we have free will.

It doesn't support it. But it doesn't contradict it either. The story
really has little to say about free will at all. At most, it arguably
says that god can take away our free will even he wants to and
actually does so in at least one exceptional case. So what?

Prophecy itself is counterindicative of free will.

No, as I've argued. The prophecies may be no more than "you will not
turn invisible tomorrow". God's superior knowledge of the state of the
universe and the laws of the universe might allow him to predict human
action way better than any human could.

The logical ramifications
of an omniscient being pretty much trash the very idea.

Right, but that's not your original argument, that's your new one.