Christian theological question.

[New Kereptica]

That's not quite true. Even if YOU don't know exactly what will happen, that doesn't mean that it isn't deterministic. It could very well be that what will happen is set in stone and you just happen to be ignorant of it.

Of course. I'm just assuming that nobody knows for the sake of simplicity.

Even if someone does know, though, that doesn't mean the fore-knowledge is what determines the outcome. This would be paradoxical, because your past incarnation knows the outcome as a consequence of the event, which would mean your knowledge is what causes your knowledge.

This is one of the reasons why backward time-travel is paradoxical.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

This is one of the reasons why backward time-travel is paradoxical.

Going back in time is only paradoxical if you hold on to the notion that time is absolute. Once you throw that away, the paradoxes can be explained.

[Kamsaki]

This is one of the reasons why backward time-travel is paradoxical.

Going back in time is only paradoxical if you hold on to the notion that time is absolute. Once you throw that away, the paradoxes can be explained.

You can avoid the paradoxes even in an absolute notion of time, but it does require the surrender of indeterminacy.

[New Kereptica]

This is one of the reasons why backward time-travel is paradoxical.

Going back in time is only paradoxical if you hold on to the notion that time is absolute. Once you throw that away, the paradoxes can be explained.

You can avoid the paradoxes even in an absolute notion of time, but it does require the surrender of indeterminacy.

Or merely the surrender of the notion that one can absolutely know the outcome of an event, be it before or after the event occurred.

[Omnicracy]

True, it was an over simplification to the point of being somewhat wrong, I was hoping no one would catch that. While it will definitly play out one way, it is not God making it play out that way, it is God knowing how it plays out. Another example, I get to days lotery numbers and go back in time to befor they were called. I know the nubers that are going to come up, but my knowledge of it does not make them come up.

It does, due to the nature of probability. If you know absolutely that something is going to happen a certain way, it has to happen that way. If you didn't know, then there would be other possibilities for the outcome, but since you know what is going to happen, the chances of those other things happening are zero. In effect, you are making things happen.

So, let me see if I understand properly, you believe knowledge of an event makes the event occur?

[Kamsaki]

You can avoid the paradoxes even in an absolute notion of time, but it does require the surrender of indeterminacy.

Or merely the surrender of the notion that one can absolutely know the outcome of an event, be it before or after the event occurred.

I'd suggest that this is just because you've included knowledge as metaphysically causal. You wouldn't generally see agreement on this factor.

[New Kereptica]

True, it was an over simplification to the point of being somewhat wrong, I was hoping no one would catch that. While it will definitly play out one way, it is not God making it play out that way, it is God knowing how it plays out. Another example, I get to days lotery numbers and go back in time to befor they were called. I know the nubers that are going to come up, but my knowledge of it does not make them come up.

It does, due to the nature of probability. If you know absolutely that something is going to happen a certain way, it has to happen that way. If you didn't know, then there would be other possibilities for the outcome, but since you know what is going to happen, the chances of those other things happening are zero. In effect, you are making things happen.

So, let me see if I understand properly, you believe knowledge of an event makes the event occur?

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

[Omnicracy]

True, it was an over simplification to the point of being somewhat wrong, I was hoping no one would catch that. While it will definitly play out one way, it is not God making it play out that way, it is God knowing how it plays out. Another example, I get to days lotery numbers and go back in time to befor they were called. I know the nubers that are going to come up, but my knowledge of it does not make them come up.

It does, due to the nature of probability. If you know absolutely that something is going to happen a certain way, it has to happen that way. If you didn't know, then there would be other possibilities for the outcome, but since you know what is going to happen, the chances of those other things happening are zero. In effect, you are making things happen.

So, let me see if I understand properly, you believe knowledge of an event makes the event occur?

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You understand that is equvilent to saying knowing where an object isright now causes the object to be there, right?

[Kamsaki]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You need to be careful on this: I think you mean to say only if the outcome would otherwise be dependent on truly random factors.

[Tech-gnosis]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

How so?

[Omnicracy]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You need to be careful on this: I think you mean to say only if the outcome would otherwise be dependent on truly random factors.

Could you explain what you just said? I think I missed part of it.

[New Kereptica]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You need to be careful on this: I think you mean to say only if the outcome would otherwise be dependent on truly random factors.

I do indeed.

[Omnicracy]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You need to be careful on this: I think you mean to say only if the outcome would otherwise be dependent on truly random factors.

I do indeed.

But is time not a relitive demention? Therefor, is not knowledge of all dementions simultaniously similar to our animalist view of three dementions, just on a level we cannot yet comprehend?

[New Kereptica]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

How so?

If one has absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before that event occurs, providing that if that observer didn't have absolute knowledge of the outcome the outcome would be dependent on probability, then that knowledge can be said to have caused the outcome, as its existence makes any other outcome impossible.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

No, it isn't.

[New Kereptica]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You need to be careful on this: I think you mean to say only if the outcome would otherwise be dependent on truly random factors.

I do indeed.

But is time not a relitive demention? Therefor, is not knowledge of all dementions simultaniously similar to our animalist view of three dementions, just on a level we cannot yet comprehend?

It is indeed, and that's where the problem with absolute knowledge comes in. One's knowledge of the outcome of an event after it occurred is only more certain that one's knowledge of the outcome before it occurred, not absolute.

[RAHIT RA]

You understand that is equvilent to saying knowing where an object isright now causes the object to be there, right?

seems legit

schrodinger and all that

before something is observed it does not have position

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

You have your causality mixed up. If absolute knowledge of the future is possible, then the future must be determined. However, it is the fact that the future is deterministic that makes absolute knowledge possible, not the fact that absolute knowledge is possible that makes the future determined.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

seems legit

schrodinger and all that

before something is observed it does not have position

That's not entirely accurate. The wavefunction needn't really have actual physical existence. It more has to do with our potential for knowledge about the system.

[RAHIT RA]

seems legit

schrodinger and all that

before something is observed it does not have position

That's not entirely accurate. The wavefunction needn't really have actual physical existence. It more has to do with our potential for knowledge about the system.

if the wavefunction doesn't have physical existence how does anything have physical existence ?

[New Kereptica]

You have your causality mixed up. If absolute knowledge of the future is possible, then the future must be determined. However, it is the fact that the future is deterministic that makes absolute knowledge possible, not the fact that absolute knowledge is possible that makes the future determined.

If absolute knowledge were merely possible, then the determinism of the future would make it so, as it would be possible for it merely to not exist and the future to remain deterministic. However, if absolute knowledge actually does exist, then I see no way determinism and the existence of absolute knowledge could be separated, to say nothing of one causing the other.

[Omnicracy]

You have your causality mixed up. If absolute knowledge of the future is possible, then the future must be determined. However, it is the fact that the future is deterministic that makes absolute knowledge possible, not the fact that absolute knowledge is possible that makes the future determined.

So, It's like what I was saying with my spacial example or no?

[Kamsaki]

Absolute knowledge of the outcome of an event before the event occurs is equivalent to causing the outcome.

You need to be careful on this: I think you mean to say only if the outcome would otherwise be dependent on truly random factors.

Could you explain what you just said? I think I missed part of it.

The query about the relationship between future states and observers is kinda a controversial topic in quantum physics. Absolute knowledge, as Kereptica is taking it, basically means something like the following:

I absolutely know X if:
A) I have observed that X happens/ed
B) I remember that I have observed that X happens/ed
C) My remembering that I have observed that X happens/ed logically entails that X actually happens/ed

What this means, as applied to real randomness in physical systems, is that in A), we fix an event from something that is truly random to its outcome, and B) and C) mean that my knowledge provides a constraint on this outcome such that it remains fixed for as long as both hold.

Absolute knowledge thereby is supposed to mean that the state of any random event is constrained to be that which my absolute knowledge has it fixed to.

This is somewhat controversial, as most people would like the three conditions to be the case for most of our everyday circumstances. C) is probably the most controversial one, and we could probably be prepared to accept that memory doesn't actually provide a sound basis for the truth of what we remember, but the kinds of cases Kereptica is suggesting would mean that even something like "Absolute knowledge of facts we're specifically trying to remember for a duration of about five minutes" must be denied, which is quite a skeptical position.

[Pope Joan]

Here is the pertinent article from the ultra-Calvinist Canons of Dordt
from a Reformed Church sources.

The Reformed Church still avows these points, which clearly do support an affirmation of predestination to hell as well as to heaven.

"Article 6: God's Eternal Decree

The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from God's eternal decree. "Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago." In accordance with this decree God graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of the chosen ones and inclines them to believe, but by just judgment God leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially is disclosed to us God's act--unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just--of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the well-known decision of election and reprobation revealed in God's Word. The wicked, impure, and unstable distort this decree to their own ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words."

http://www.rca.org/Page.aspx?pid=415

Sorry guys, that may be your God but it ain't mine.

isnt that an extremely ugly view of god?

It doesn't appeal to me, but each one to his own tastes.
Some people have a great need to have everything nailed down, I think.

[Escafin]

Are you talking about predestination, or final judgment?

The largest Christian faith (the Catholic Church, which I belong to) promotes the idea that it is the individual choice of a human being to commit sin and ask forgiveness, so it is ultimately the human being who decides his future.

Calvinists, however, are amongst some Christians to believe in the concept of predestination; that is, one cannot change their final destination in heaven or hell because it has already been decided.

Also, God is omnipotent, but it's a trick question as to ask "can He do everything"? No, He cannot. It is doctrine of the Church that God cannot commit sin or evil, and thus is not capable of everything.