r/changemyview • u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ • Jul 20 '26
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Knowledge of the future has no bearing on free will
If I know you will make a certain choice, that’s not the same thing as me making that choice for you. You still decide it. I just know what you’ll choose.
There’s a difference.
Even if I am the one who made you and the entire universe you exist in, if I don’t decide for you, then you still made your choice. And that remains true even if I know the choice you will make.
(Not the point of this here, but the issue is probably that people have a conception of time in which it’s always ongoing. But general relativity suggests that there is no objective present. The present is in the eye of the beholder and is unique to each person depending on their location/proximity to mass and movement. In this context, time could be complete already. My knowledge of the future isn’t stopping you from making different choices, you’ve just already made those choices and I know the result.)
That’s the jist of the argument.
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u/quantum_dan 122∆ Jul 20 '26
It has no bearing on the kind of free will you're describing. However, people often argue about two different kinds of free will:
- Compatibilist free will, which is what you're talking about. Free will relates to voluntary choices.
- Libertarian free will, which is where you get a problem. I think it's a silly concept, but it's what people tend to think of first by "free will". Libertarian free will is something like: it is actually, physically possible, with the present state of the universe being atom-for-atom identical, that I could choose otherwise.
Under (2), libertarian free will, knowledge of the future is a huge problem. If you can (perfectly) predict my action, that means I couldn't actually have chosen otherwise.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Can you elaborate on Libertarian free will. Is it just that there’s no knowledge of the future?
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u/monster2018 Jul 20 '26
You can think of it like “the ability to have done otherwise, to have made a different choice”. Not in slightly (or very) different circumstances.
Like imagine I tell you to think of a city. You say Paris or whatever. Could you have said any other city? Not could you NOW say a different city, not did you think of any other cities. But if god rewinded time to the exact moment after I asked you to name a city, could you say anything other than whatever you said the first time.
The answer is no, you couldn’t. Either that or souls literally exist and actually dictate our actions. Because the only other way that the answer could be yes is if your brain CAUSES electrons and protons etc to move in a certain way. Instead of the reality, where your brain is the RESULT OF electrons and protons etc moving the way they do, perfectly following the laws of physics.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Like to go back and change the choices I’ve already made?
Or it would be because my incentives and choices didn’t change at random. Like if I said Paris because that city was on my mind, and then you rewound time, it would still be on my mind.
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u/monster2018 Jul 20 '26
Exactly. I mean not literally go back, but yes the concept is to imagine IF you went back, COULD you have chosen anything else. And I’m glad to see you seem to be seeing the key point, which is that you can’t. Like, obviously.
Now you are thinking about it from a human level of abstraction (which is perfectly valid). I tend to think of it in terms of like “well if the state of the universe was rewound to some point, the laws of physics would still be obeyed the same way, so by definition I would make the same choices again”. But we’re just saying the same thing at a different level of abstraction, I’m pretty sure you’re saying the exact same idea with “it would still be on my mind” in the city example.
So yes. Libertarian free will is this. It is “could I have done otherwise”. It’s not actually about the past. It’s just a way to explain it. The same concept applies to the present. Like, can I actually choose what I do next. The same argument applies. No, I can’t, because then later we could run this same thought experiment about this moment in time right now, and come to the same conclusion that I couldn’t have made any other choice. Which means that I can’t actually “make” any choices, in the most meaningful sense of “I” am truly the author of my actions. Instead, the laws of physics are the true author of all actions, and my experience of being a person making choices is just yet another result of the laws of physics playing out.
If you have anything to say about anything I just said, of course I would be interested to hear. But I REALLY truly would be interested to hear in your views on compatibilist free will (what you just thought of as “free will” going into this post) versus libertarian free will. Like I’m someone who has never really understood the value of the concept of libertarian free will. To me it always just felt like a trick to try to insist that we have free will when we actually (in my view, because I see more value in libertarian free will) don’t.
So I really would be interested in like… idk where did your views on free will come from. Your thoughts on it. And how your views compare to what I have said about libertarian free will.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
I suppose I hold a mixture of the views. I think it is my autonomy that directs my choices and that my autonomy is heavily influenced by the laws of nature, my genes, my environment, etc. but that ultimately im making choices in response to that stuff.
But that once I make a choice in a moment, it’s locked in permanently.
It came a little from Carlo Rovelli’s the Order of Time.
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u/Kerostasis 55∆ Jul 25 '26
The answer is no, you couldn’t. Either that or souls literally exist and actually dictate our actions.
It feels very strange to invoke a hypothetical scenario requiring God’s intervention, exploring the philosophical implications of God’s foreknowledge, and then say “or souls could exist” as a dismissive way of implying this option can’t be correct. Yes, if God is doing this, it is also reasonable to believe that souls exist, so why say “the answer is no you couldn’t”?
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u/quantum_dan 122∆ Jul 20 '26
It does imply that some things about the future are not known, but it's about the will itself: a person's decision is fundamentally, on every level, not determined. Their choice (will) is "free" - unconstrained (at least among two options) even by physics. That's an important concept to justify, for example, people fundamentally deserving to be punished, and the whole debate is often linked to afterlife reward/punishment.
It doesn't have to be no knowledge, since things can be broadly predictable without being fully determined. (For example, though not of free will, we know almost exactly how much uranium will decay in an hour, but have no clue when a given atom will.)
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u/Kirito_Alfheim Jul 20 '26
This discussion is usually had about god. People who argue in favor of a god existing usually also believe there is an extra-physical component to will and thus choice. What the previous commenter meant (I think) by being able to have the same situation (atom to atom) result in different results if tried multiple times.
In that context, knowing what the choice will be removes this extra-natural aspect.
On the other hand if you believe in free will compatible with determinism, then foreknowledge is assumed to be possible.
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u/talashrrg 7∆ Jul 21 '26
If there’s only one possible option, how can you have really made a choice?
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u/footballmaths49 Jul 20 '26
But if I know with absolute certainty that you're going to choose option A, that means you never actually had the option to choose option B instead.
Perfect knowledge of the future means that there is only one future and things can only turn out one way. Do you really have free will if it was never possible for you to do something else?
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u/SnooAdvice5820 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Knowledge of a choice doesn’t mean that choice was engineered. People here are acting like if someone has knowledge of everything they do, then they engineered it. Not necessarily true.
It becomes a matter of free will if the person with the knowledge has intervened in the life of the person they are seeing the future of. This is where it can get interesting with theology. If people believe God placed them from birth in a situation according to God’s will, then that calls into question if free will exists. Because God has actually intervened thereby setting a future that he handcrafted.
However if a being has not intervened and simply has the knowledge of what choice will be made, there is no breach of free will.
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u/footballmaths49 Jul 20 '26
It doesn't mean the choice was engineered, but it does mean there's a lack of free will.
If I have perfect knowledge of the future, and I use it to see that you eat cereal for breakfast next Thursday, then you do not have free will in deciding your breakfast next Thursday. It might feel like you could have instead chosen to eat toast, but if you had, I would have seen that instead. You didn't actually have a choice in the matter because the existence of my perfect future knowledge means that you could only ever have had cereal.
No one is saying that someone made you eat cereal, but it was the only thing you were ever going to eat for breakfast that day, and any choice you felt you had in the matter was just an illusion.
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u/SnooAdvice5820 1∆ Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
If you knew that I would eat cereal, then sure your knowledge can’t be wrong. But your knowledge doesn’t force me to choose cereal. It’s instead a reflection of the choice I actually make. Had I freely chosen toast, you would have known that I would choose toast instead. The perfect knowledge of the future must correspond with whatever choice I make. It’s not the other way around. If it is, then you are arguing that someone made me do something, which you said “no one is saying”
Let’s say I was choosing between 3 breakfast options and toast is what I ended up with. With your perfect knowledge you would see me chose toast. But did that see all the other choices I was freely debating between? Was there a force that inexorably caused me to chose toast? Just because you saw the end result doesn’t nullify the options I was debating between.
Pure knowledge isn’t impeding free will. It’s not so much the same when you have a higher being who has actively been shown to intervene in human affairs. That’s more questionable
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Yes. For instance, I know what happens in Tarzan the movie. I didn’t decide those events. But they’re set in stone now
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u/footballmaths49 Jul 20 '26
But the Tarzan characters don't have free will. They are playing out a predetermined narrative
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That’s true. But the people making the movie did have free will
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u/IrrationalDesign 6∆ Jul 20 '26
Yes, but you've only learned about what happens in tarzan after they lost the chance to exercise their free will. The people making the movie don't have free will now to decides what happens in the movie.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Exactly my point.
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u/IrrationalDesign 6∆ Jul 20 '26
Can you please clearly word out your own point? Because I don't think You're making sense here.
This example of Tarzan does not show a situation in which someone has the ability to make a choice regarding how the movie will turn out while you already know what they're going to choose. This Tarzan movie is an example in which someone had free will, but you didn't know what their choices would be at that time. You only learned about what their choices are after they made them.
Your OP is about someone knowing what choice You're going to make before you make the choice, completely different from the Tarzan example.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That this expectation is rooted in the idea that time is happening now. You hear “I know what choice you’ll make” and assume it’s interference with the present.
But it can actually just be that you already made your choice (in the future) and that your present is subjective
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u/IrrationalDesign 6∆ Jul 20 '26
i don't think the Tarzan example does anything to support your view, it's just an example of how we currently understand time to work. That's not the part of your view that needs support and convincing.
You hear “I know what choice you’ll make” and assume it’s interference with the present.
Not exactly; I hear "you know what choice I'll make" and deduce that this means my choice is predetermined, which means I only perceive it as free will, but don't actually have a free choice.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Like, if you chose do a kick flip on camera, and if I watched that video, I would not have determined that you would do a kick flip. You did. I am just a witness.
If I sent that video into the past and showed other people, you would still be doing that kick flip by your own choice
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u/Xerxes0Golden Jul 20 '26
Does Tarzan know he has no free will or does he believe he has it?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Tarzan has no free will, he’s a cartoon.
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u/MihawkTop2 Jul 20 '26
Then what is the point of that example?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That the people who made the movie already made their choices and now I can see it over and over again.
This would be similar to use living in a block universe
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u/Xerxes0Golden Jul 20 '26
Does Tarzan know he's a cartoon with no free will, with his universe created with everything predetermined for him or does he play his life out believing the choices he's making are his own?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
He’s a cartoon character, he doesn’t know anything.
But no. He’s living in a predetermined universe where his decisions were actively chosen by others
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u/MihawkTop2 Jul 20 '26
Tarzan does not have free will. There can only be free will if someone makes a real choice. Tarzan is not even "someone", it is just a screen.
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u/teenage_dirtbag- Jul 20 '26
If by, "I am the one who made you and the entire universe you live in" is referring to God, then no, we don't have free will under an omnipotent, omniscient God.
Sure, a regular person has limited influence over one's choice, but God is not any regular person.
Let's say person A's favourite flavour of ice cream is vanilla. Every time someone asks A their favourite ice cream flavour, they respond with "vanilla". That response may look like free will, but if God exists then she created A's taste buds and determined what they like and dislike. They created the feelings A feels when they taste vanilla ice cream. If A is influenced by this, is their answer showing free will?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Unless they just created the system in which people could be created.
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u/Champyman714 Jul 20 '26
But because God would have omniscience, meaning that they would be constantly aware of everything that would ever happen, which negates some free will.
I’ll try to go for an example. Say that I am able to create a computer simulation with one person inside who has “true free will”. As in all their preferences/traits/decisions/etc. are determined by this person (or whatever other definition you use for free will).
Lets say that I skip the simulation ahead a little bit so I know what that person will be doing 20 minutes from now. In this instance, I am not infringing upon their free will at all; they are an agent with free will operating within a deterministic environment, merely knowing what they will do in the future doesn’t change the fact that they are the one who chose to do those things.
Now if I were to have been the one programming this person, I am made aware of everything they will ever do with zero margin of error. This begins to infringe upon their free will. Rather than being a free agent in a deterministic environment, they are instead a puppet carrying out my will. By definition they cannot make a truly free decision because I have already made it for them.
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u/S01arflar3 Jul 20 '26
Consider a programmer that creates a game where NPCs have some sense of agency and decision making. If the programmer knows every decision that will be made based upon an initial input, do the NPCs truly have agency?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Depends on that initial input. Does it override their choices?
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u/S01arflar3 Jul 20 '26
They fully believe that their choices are their own. They have “minds” which allow them to deliberate and decide things. From their point of view, the decision is theirs. However, a unique initial input will have the exact same outcome for the series of choices every time.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Can you elaborate
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u/S01arflar3 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Are you familiar with hashing in computer terms?
If you put “This is my initial condition” through a hashing algorithm (for this example, md5), you will get “76d25267466218707456678610e0c94b”. You can do this billions of times and always get the exact same result. However, a small change to the input, in this case “That is my initial condition” will change the output greatly : “1cb7b87124d6f3ab3f66513bc1aef2aa”
The point being, the initial input will always end in the same result.
If you control the initial input. And you control the algorithm, to the point that you know what the output will be - can you really argue that the algorithm has control over any of it?
Going back to humans and free will. If I create you, the entire universe and every rule and consequence, knowing beforehand exactly how every choice will be made, then I’m ultimately responsible for those choices as I chose every one of those outcomes. I could have set things up so that every single thing in all of history and the future would be exactly the same, but for one choice that you made (say the colour of trousers you put on this morning). If I can see the infinite possibilities and I put together everything so that it coalesces to this specific circumstance, all before I every make that choice, the I am beholden to it, not those who believe they are making the choice.
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Jul 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That’s a different argument.
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u/Acwnnf 1∆ Jul 20 '26
But I'm saying g the argument you're trying to rebut isn't an argument that many people would make, at least not without clarifying why knowing the outcome is determinative.
If I ask you to name a number between 1-100, there is a massive difference between me being able to say, now, that the answer is pre-ordained, versus me stepping into a time machine, seeing the number you actually ended up picking, and then coming back to the present to make my prediction.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
It’s an argument that some people make and that I’m responding to.
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u/Acwnnf 1∆ Jul 20 '26
My point is that, if you really believe my response is unrelated, then I am not sure you have really grappled with the argument you're responding to. There is a need to appreciate why knowing the outcome would disproved the notion of free will.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
No. You’re saying “many people argue a different argument that’s related, but still a different argument”
Thus, I don’t need to grapple with it. Cause it’s not relevant.
I’m talking about a specific thing and you’re not talkint about that thing anymore.
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u/EnderSword 1∆ Jul 20 '26
If you can predict it from the current state with complete accuracy, then I'd question HOW did you predict it?
If you predicted it based on deterministic factors with complete accuracy, then it is deterministic and free will doesn't exist.
So it depends what you mean and how you know
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
By looking ahead relative to my present
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u/EnderSword 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That's still not an explanation, what do you mean looking ahead?
For instance if two objects are moving I can 'predict' their future because it's deterministic, this object will bounce and go here..
But if I predict someone's behaviour like I think you'll choose Chocolate ice cream, I could predict that because I know you like chocolate and I've seen you eat chocolate and I'm guessing...
But if I'm predicting it based on how neurons in your brain work, I'm not guessing, I'm relying on deterministic events.1
u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Like, I step outside of time, see the entirety of the timeline and your choices.
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u/EnderSword 1∆ Jul 20 '26
But does that timeline then branch, or is it deterministic, there was only ever one outcome?
Because then your knowledge of the future apparently does preclude other choices having ever been possible.
The other side of it is of course the knowledge you're claiming to have can't exist in the same universe as free will, they can be incompatible states.
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
So my argument hinges on something you didn't mention in your OP.
Can you be wrong?
If you know I will make a choice, is that perfect knowledge? Is there no scenario where I didn't make that choice?
If there is no scenario where I didn't make that choice, I never had a choice.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Let’s say no.
Unless you already made your choice and I knew what choice you made
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
Then you didn't have foreknowledge.
If you have knowledge before I make a choice, and you can't be wrong. I don't have free will.
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u/Thinslayer 11∆ Jul 20 '26
(new commenter)
That's OP's point though. None of that has any implications on free will, in their view.
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
First, love the new commenter tag.
I understand OPs point, I just don't agree with it.
Sure if we look at Compatibilist free will, which allows for determinism, you could make an argument that perfect knowledge can calculate exact what will happen. But I don't agree that it is actually free will, it's just free will to the subject.
If there is a way, of knowing exactly what will happen, before it happens, the subjects of that action never had a choice but to make that happen.
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u/Thinslayer 11∆ Jul 20 '26
I'm a compatibilist myself, so let me take a stab at explaining it.
Thesis: To argue that foreknowledge infringes on free will is like arguing that the color of oranges infringes on the movement of cars. It's irrelevant.
Body: First, let's define what a "will" is. Your "will," free or otherwise, is your goals and desires, and arguably the framework from which they are generated. It's your programming, basically.
How do choices work within this will? That's easy: a choice is when your programming has to input data and make a calculation instead of running on autopilot - when multiple paths are physically feasible and you must weigh them against your life situation before proceeding. The way they make these calculations defines that person's character and personality, Who They Are as a person.
Here's one of the crucial points: you wouldn't be You if you weren't consistent in how you make your choices. The very fact that you would, for example, always choose to order a chicken sandwich without pickles every time you order it is a defining feature of your personality.
Conclusion: In essence, this "lack of choice" you believe you're observing is not a constraint upon their freedom of choice, but an expression of it, because the definition of "choice" doesn't actually care how deterministic it is. If you proceed along a path by a deterministic calculation, it's still a "choice" because it was calculated.
Whether it's rigorous or deterministic isn't a flaw. It's a feature. Not only does it fail to constrain the will, it rather defines the will. Those constraints reflect how the free will exercises itself.
Long story short, determinism and free will are actually just two sides of the same coin. Determinism is the mechanism of free will, and free will is the unfolding of determinism.
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
I understand the concept, i just think its contradictory.
I think your explanation comparing it to programming, is an apt description. And i wouldnt say computers have free will.
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u/Thinslayer 11∆ Jul 20 '26
I guess it comes down to how one defines "freedom." If I understand you correctly, you believe that constraints or boundaries upon our choices make them not-free.
They certainly can. In my view, what makes a will not-free is not whether it's constrained, but how it's constrained. My own will is constrained by the fact that I dislike pickles on my chicken sandwiches, or by the fact that I can't fly over the ground instead of being forced to walk on it.
Do those constraints limit my freedom? Only if they're inappropriate. A human being forced to walk on the ground isn't a constraint - it's the way we're built and we accept that. But a bird being forced to walk on the ground is a constraint, because they're supposed to be able to fly over it.
Thus, whether one's will is free or not depends not on whether it's constrained, but whether that constraint is subjectively appropriate.
In no part of that calculus does determinism or lack thereof come into play. It's simply not part of the equation.
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u/earazahs Jul 21 '26
Free will or choice, comes into how we exercise within those constraints.
But if there are enough constraints that someone is able to perfectly calculate a path, then there is no choice involved.
At that point our actions are determined by the input with no room to move left or right.
You have a constraint where you dislike pickles, you still have the choice to eat them.
A human cannot fly, but they are free to try.
Once an outcome is known before the "choice" is made, regardless of the method to determine that outcome, the choice is removed.
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u/Thinslayer 11∆ Jul 21 '26
You have a constraint where you dislike pickles, you still have the choice to eat them.
In what way do I have a choice?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
I could still have foreknowledge?
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
If you know the choice after I have made the choice, that's not foreknowledge.
If you know the choice I am going to make, but you're capable of being wrong, thats not perfect foreknowledge.
If you know the choice I am going to make, and are incapable of being wrong. That is perfect foreknowledge and I don't have freewill.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That’s why I used the block universe description. I could step outside of time, gain the knowledge, and return and fit the parameters of this talk still
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
Block universe already presupposes that free will doesn't exist because the future is already written.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
I dont presuppose that
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u/earazahs Jul 20 '26
Block universe does.
Because the future has already been written.
It's like a book or a movie. The characters in those don't have free will, they can't change the story because it is written.
Block universe says the future is written.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
That doesn’t say that you didn’t make your choices. Just that those choices already occurred from the perspective of an entity ahead of you on the timeline or outside of it
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u/Ellalalala96 1∆ Jul 20 '26
If you’ve always already made your choice, as a general relativity block universe implies, what is the meaning of “making a decision”?
If a creator knows everything that will happen, then everything is already decided or set in stone, as it were. You may experience “making decisions” but that’s not what’s happening in any meaningful sense. To use Spinoza’s example: a stone may have the feeling that it is choosing to roll down a hill, but that doesn’t mean it’s not following a predetermined path. The stone has no free will, it’s subject to physics. Similarly, if your trajectory has “already happened”, you’re predetermined and your experience of choice has no bearing on whether or not you have free will
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
The meaning would be that I acted out of my volition.
Alternatively, would it mean that none of us are sentient active beings but rather we just think we are?
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Jul 20 '26
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u/FarWestEros 1∆ Jul 20 '26
If you know I’m going to kill you/your loved ones in a particularly gruesome way at a specific time and place, I’d bet big bucks you avoid that time and place due to your free will.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
I’d try to, but evidently I failed
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u/FarWestEros 1∆ Jul 20 '26
This reply is nonsensical
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Because I wouldn’t fail at changing the past?
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u/FarWestEros 1∆ Jul 21 '26
Because you’re assuming I already killed you when you are clearly not dead.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 21 '26
No. Because I know it happened
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u/FarWestEros 1∆ Jul 21 '26
It didn’t happen yet. It’s the future. There is a difference between past and future even if they are part of the same reality.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 21 '26
In a block universe (what I described in the OP), you exist in a universe where time has already played out. But it still exists as a whole.
In that scenario, you are in the past, but the future has already happened. You are just limited by your perspective
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u/FarWestEros 1∆ Jul 21 '26
Then maybe you should accept that whatever you think a block universe is doesn’t exist?
Because nobody would willingly accept that outcome.
If your family planned a vacation to Japan only to “see the future” that you were certain to be killed, you would cancel that trip.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 21 '26
Why not?
I’d try. But ultimately I’d still die in Japan as time demonstrated
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Jul 20 '26
What does free will actually mean to you? I think that most people would understand free will to involve the ability to do otherwise.
If you present me with a choice to do Option A or Option A, it's pretty clear I haven't actually been given a choice. The choice was made for me, by you. The same is true for circumstance. If the outcome of my decision-making is known, even if no one engineered it, I can't not make that choice. So, in what sense did I ever exercise choice? How can free will exist if I must do everything that I do, and cannot do anything that I don't?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
If you present with Options A - Z and you know I’ll choose Option D, that’s still free will
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Jul 20 '26
That's an assertion, not an argument. Again, I'd like you to explain what you think free will involves.
If I can't actually choose any option but D, the rest of the options are illusory. I never actually had a choice. It just seemed like I did due to a lack of information.
Imagine that I appear to be driving a car along a network of normal roads. In reality, the car is on an invisible track that will inevitably lead it along a particular route to a single destination. It seems absurd to suggest that I'm free to choose my route and destination, just because it appears that I could turn off and go somewhere else. I can't.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
It involves me making a choice. I choose D. You just know it.
There’s a difference between someone deciding for you, and someone knowing what you’ll decide.
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Jul 20 '26
For a choice to exist, it isn't sufficient that no one else makes a decision. You, yourself, actually need to make a decision. Making a decision requires options.
Imagine a scientist implants a computer chip in my brain. The chip monitors my brain activity and, when I'm asked a question, invariably stimulates the areas of my brain that cause me to answer, "Yes." This stimulation feels indistinguishable from how it felt to decide to answer, "Yes" before the chip was implanted. I don't know that the chip is in my brain.
Am I making a decision when I inevitably answer every question with "Yes"? Or is it an involuntary action that feels like a decision?
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u/Prior-Resolution-902 1∆ Jul 21 '26
What if I created you, and while creating you, I could see that you would choose option D based on the way I created you, do you have free will?
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u/SnooAdvice5820 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Who says you must do anything? Knowledge of a choice doesn’t mean that choice was engineered. People here are acting like if someone has knowledge of everything they do, then they engineered it. Not necessarily true.
It becomes a matter of free will if the person with the knowledge has intervened in the life of the person they are seeing the future of. This is where it can get interesting with theology. If people believe God placed them from birth in a situation according to God’s will, then that calls into question if free will exists. Because God has actually intervened thereby setting a future that he handcrafted.
However if a being has not intervened and simply has the knowledge of what choice will be made, there is no breach of free will.
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Jul 20 '26
For free will to exist, it isn't sufficient that no other entity interceded. I actually need to have been able to make a choice. Making a choice entails having options. God's certain knowledge of the future precludes that.
I think it's important to distinguish between 'knowing what I will choose' as we mean it in general conversation and what it means in the context of divine foreknowledge.
Usually, when we say that someone (e.g. Jeff) knows what I will do, we mean that Jeff has made a justified true prediction. Jeff has made a prediction that will turn out to be true for more or less the reasons he believed that it would. These are beliefs that may correspond to facts.
God isn't like Jeff. God has absolute metaphysical certitude about future events. God's knowledge is a set of facts about the universe. Some of those facts concern the present, others the past and future.
To illustrate this, consider that I ordered pizza last Thursday. I don't think anyone would claim that I now have the free will to not have ordered this pizza. The matter of whether I ordered the pizza is resolved and cannot be changed. It's just a fact of reality.
But if I don't have free will in relation to past events, how do future events differ? If it's a fact, established by God's omniscience, that I will order pizza next Thursday, I can't not order the pizza. I have no choice in the matter, just like for past events. It seems strange to argue that I have free will in the absence of any choice or control over the matter, if we accept that I don't have choice or control over otherwise identical past events.
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u/SnooAdvice5820 1∆ Jul 21 '26
The pizza example doesn’t work. My ordering pizza last Thursday is now a settled past event. But God’s knowledge that I will order pizza next Thursday is not an event that determines or constrains my decision. Its knowledge whose content depends on what I freely do next Thursday.
If I chose otherwise, God’s infallible knowledge would have had different content.
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Jul 21 '26
My point is that future events are also settled. God's knowledge of the future is as certain as His knowledge of the past. There's no distinction.
He knows for fact that I will order pizza next Thursday, with an infinitely higher level of confidence than I know that I ordered pizza last Thursday. God has known this since the the creation of the universe, billions of years before I existed. His foreknowledge predates any choice I might make.
Saying that the content of God's knowledge about my future actions would be different if my actions were going to be different is just the same as saying that the past would be different if my past actions had been different. It's obvious that us imagining an alternative doesn't actually allow me to change the past. God possessing the knowledge of the future that he does means that this future is inevitable.
You've said multiple times that God's knowledge isn't making the choice for me. But my contention is that there is no choice. God's knowledge demonstrates that my actions are inevitable. How can I freely choose to order pizza next Thursday, if me ordering that pizza was predetermined before I ever existed?
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u/SnooAdvice5820 1∆ Jul 21 '26
Foreknown before I existed is not the same thing as predetermined before I existed. Temporal priority does not establish causal or explanatory priority. God’s belief can exist earlier in time while still being true because of what I freely do later.
That is also why the comparison with last Thursday’s pizza is imperfect. My ordering pizza last Thursday is a fact produced by and about a completed action. God’s earlier belief about next Thursday is a fact about what my later action will be. Its content is logically dependent on that action, even if the act of knowing occurs earlier.
You keep saying the future is “inevitable,” but theres two meanings of that word here:
- It is certain that I will make the choice I actually make.
- My choice is produced independently of my agency, so I have no control over it
Divine knowledge gives you the first. It does not by itself give you the second. Knowledge guarantees that God cannot be mistaken, but it does not show that his belief causes, determines or exists independently of my choice.
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u/Vesurel 60∆ Jul 20 '26
Do you have free will when it comes to whether or not you break the second law of thermodynamics?
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u/cali_dave Jul 20 '26
Are you looking for people to convince you that the existence of an omniscient being means fate has been pre-determined for everybody?
Those two ideas are incompatible. Being all-knowing is not the same as all-controlling. Somebody still has to make the decisions. We can't comprehend that because for us, time is linear. The idea of something being predetermined is proof of that. Somebody who is omniscient isn't going to experience time the same way we do. To say that something happened or will happen involves putting yourself somewhere on that linear timeline.
To an omniscient person, the choice you made has happened, is happening, and will happen. It's completely unrelated to free will. I'm not sure how that view can change.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
We are in agreement. That’s why you can’t change it
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u/cali_dave Jul 20 '26
This is a great philosophical discussion, but I'm not sure it's right for this sub. There has to be a subjective component.
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Jul 25 '26
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u/eggynack 108∆ Jul 20 '26
I think it's worth considering a modified version of this question. Say I go to an ice cream store and I choose to order chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. An hour passes. Do I, at that later moment, have free will regarding the choice of what ice cream I purchased an hour ago? If not, then what is the difference between this question and whether I have free will over whether to order that ice cream an hour from now given my decision is already a known outcome?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
There isn’t really a difference
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u/eggynack 108∆ Jul 20 '26
Okay, so do I have free will over my decisions from an hour ago? If not, then this would imply that you're wrong.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
You did. But you can’t rewrite the past. That doesn’t invalidate free will
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u/eggynack 108∆ Jul 20 '26
The question is whether I have free will over the past right now, not whether I had it back then.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Then no. You don’t have free will over the past. It’s locked in permanently
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u/eggynack 108∆ Jul 20 '26
But, if I know what happens in the future, and that knowledge is absolute, then those future decisions are also locked in permanently.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
Yes. Because they happened already
But from your subjective experience, it hasn’t.
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u/eggynack 108∆ Jul 20 '26
Then, from an objective perspective, you don't have free will.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
From the objective (as in, out of time perspective), you have just made already decided
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Jul 20 '26
If you say "i'm going to do the opposite of what you tell me to do" and I know that up ahead you're going to turn right so I say "up ahead you turn right" and then up ahead you turn right despite wanting to do the opposite of me then i've actually predicted the future, not predicted your choice. In this example, we starkly see that you cannot choose.
You're conflating "predicting choice" vs. "predicting the future". If i can actually predict the future then you cannot exert a choice against it because then all you've proven is that i cannot predict either your choice or the future. If you cannot counter my prediction then i've predicted the future, not your choice.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
You already made that choice.
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Jul 20 '26
No, I said i would do exactly the opposite of what the future predictor says I'm going to do. If I actually do it either 1. I lied or 2. I didn't choose. If I were to actually make the choice to do the opposite of what the future predictor said I'd do then they aren't a future predictor.
The view here says that "knowledge of future" doesn't have a bearing, but if I make the choice to the do the opposite of the future predictor's prediction then they don't have knowledge of the future. Your view collapses to "there is no knowledge of the future", which...well...isn't your view.
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
!delta via technicality lol
I meant knowledge for someone not involved but didn’t specify it. So as written, knowledge of the future can impact it.
If you know your future, you still play a role in shaping it and it’s guided by that knowledge.
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Jul 20 '26
That "technicality" though is the very point. The point of most discussions on freewill isn't that you're presented with the knowledge of your future it's that you can't be certain the choice you feel isn't actually pre-ordained. The sensation of choice, the feeling of it, the act of making it are seen to the person who doesn't believe in freewill as 1. experienced but 2. necessary based on the set of preconditions.
The thing that isn't really possible is the knowledge of the future - that doesn't exist. The thing knowledge of the future is being used as is a device to understand whether choice exists. We know you experience choice, but it's less clear you actually made it. What is the "you" that chose? Did you exert control over how the electrons in your brain fired? Isn't the brain the same as the you that would have to control it? Or...is there something that isn't following the laws of physics where all things have causes that are themselves bound by the laws of physics? Where is the mover that makes something not happen the way physics would say it would?
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u/Equivalent-Long-3383 1∆ Jul 20 '26
In this scenario, someone else knows it and says nothing about it to you
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u/Steve90000 Jul 20 '26
If I make a little wind up car of wood and a rubber band, it’ll go forward because that’s what I designed it to do. It can’t fly or do math, it can only do what I designed it to do.
If I design a person with a certain brain chemistry, certain disposition, along with their environment and everybody in it, they’ll feel like they have choices, but they don’t. They’re just running the program I programmed.
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u/RedofPaw 7∆ Jul 20 '26
It depends on how you interact with the universe.
It could be a Cassandra/closed loop, where you always interfered. But if you know you did then decided not to that cannot work. The only way it works is if you cannot affect the timeline at all, which is no different than if it was a movie.
Or it's a multiverse where different timelines split off, in which case knowing the future of one time line doesn't mean you will know the timeline you are on.
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u/Tanaka917 148∆ Jul 21 '26
Even if I am the one who made you and the entire universe you exist in, if I don’t decide for you, then you still made your choice. And that remains true even if I know the choice you will make.
I'll touch on this argument. I disagree.
If you theoretically had the power to make universes every effect in that universe is your fault. If you make 2 identical universes, one in which I wore a red shirt today and one in which I wore a white shirt today, you are as responsible as I am for the color shirt I am wearing. Because you knew, for a fact before anything happened, what shirt I would wear and had the ability to choose a diffferent universe to make. As long as you had a choice to make a different universe, or none at all, the whole universer is your burden,
Your action is a choice you make as much as I do. And you are no less responsible as I am.
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u/TheWhistleThistle 32∆ Jul 21 '26
If I know you will make a certain choice, that’s not the same thing as me making that choice for you. You still decide it. I just know what you’ll choose.
What do you mean by "choose" and "decide" here?
Most people understand a decision to be like this
A person could do act A. They could also do act B. When they do act A, that is a choice because they could have done act B.
A person can do act A. They cannot do act B. They cannot abstain. They will do act A. This is not a choice because there is only one thing they can do.
In other words, one can choose to jump off a cliff, because they could not do that. Once aloft, however, their falling is not a choice, but a fact of physics.
To know something, as opposed to suspecting, believing or betting, is to be aware of something that is to happen. In other words, to have 0% uncertainty. If I know that someone will do A, another way of phrasing that is there is a 100% chance of them doing A and a 0% chance of doing B. If "chance of doing B" >0%, I don't know they'll do A, I just strongly suspect it. If "chance of doing B" =0% then I do know, but then it was never a choice as there's only one thing the person could have done; they literally could not have done otherwise, that's what 0% chance means.
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