[JerryLove]

I'm on meds that make me feel "fuzzy"... so this post shoudl be fun

I care about the ability to kick a ball across the room. I had power there, because, if I didn't choose to kick the ball, it was just going to sit there idly. I had power because, if I hadn't done what I did, what happened wouldn't have happened. So, you tell me that the fact that I was going to do what I did is set in stone. Sure, I'll agree with that, but nobody cares about that kind of power!

Therefore the tenses are irrelevent.. therefore everything in timespace is static... therefore no ventes actually occur... therefore nothing changes... therefore not power to effect any change.

It seems that you may be trying to ask for an incoherent notion of change/power. Are you saying that you want it to be the case that at 2:00 my guitar is on the bed, but then I make it so that at 2:00 my guitar is not on the bed? In other words, that I would have power over space and time? If the guitar is both on and not on the bed at the same time, we have a formal contradiction. You're saying that you want me to have the power to create a contradiction, if I'm really going to have "freewill"! What I can do, however, is go from my guitar being on the bed at 2:00, and then make it be off the bed at 2:01. How did I have power? Because, if I hadn't moved the guitar, it would have still been on the bed at 2:01. How was I free? Because nothing outside of me coerced me into moving the guitar.

I'm saying that if you can't change the value of any point in timespace then you can't change the value of any point in timespace.

Do you hae the power to chage the past?
No.
Why? weren't you there doing stuff?
Yes, buy you have no ability to change what occured.
How is that different from the present and the future?
It's not.

The control of our life lies in our desires, and our desires are our own. Therefore, we are led by ourselves -- we are free.

Since you have agreed to a static timespace.. you ahve no control over any attribute of anything; as you cannot change any attribute of anything.

This is a problem with your arguments, not my position.

Your position is paradoxical.. you claim to have power while admiting there is nothing you have power over.

Change is always relative to something. Nothing has changed on the four-dimensional level, but something has change on the three-dimensional level.

That's the failure of your perspective.. it has not. You are just looking somewhere else.

At t1, the ball was on this side of the room. At t2, the ball was on the other side of the room. So, the position of the ball has changed relative to time. And, given the fact that we organize all our understand of reality relative to time, I don't see why it's a bad idea to be concerned primarily with changes in space relative to time.

Because nothing has actually changed.

This doesn't interact with what I said.

If you don't have power over your choices, how can you have power which stems from the result of your choices... Just because you don't see the causal problem doesn't remove it.

How does this interact with anything I said? Yes, absolutely, God knows with certainty because He has decreed with certainty. How does this mean that I do not have the ability to choose otherwise as described above?

You are describing prediction and trying to prove that omniscience and free-will are possible together because prediction diesn't negate freewill.. However predictive knowledge and absolute knowledge are not the same.

My "want" is not free from what -- being overriden by something external to me? Yes, it is free from that. It's not free from itself. Of course, what does it mean to be free from oneself, and why does it matter if a desire is free from itself? That sounds incoherent.

Correct, your want is fixed and determinante.. therefore not free.

And of course your wants are determined by external forces... ever want things you have not concieved of? Why not? Because your "wants" are elector-chemical processes which have physical existance and physical causes.

A want, a wish, a feeling -- something in that area.

So it's a weight in a biochemical neural network? That's a really complex calculator.

[cchrisr]

Originally Posted by mustbenothing

(Me) Yes, your argument is purely semantics. So, sure, we "don't have freewill." Of course, the proposition you're expressing is not the proposition everybody else thinks it is. The proposition you're expressing, then, is "we don't have every kind of freewill of which I can conceive." And, of cousre, that's a simple truism. For, compatibilism and libertarianism are mutually exclusion. Therefore, you're simply defined the sentence "we don't have freewill" into being true. But I don't see why anyone should care about such a re-definition.

to tick others off

(Me) It also speaks of the time being "everlasting," which is clearly compatible with (and insinuates) temporality.

I also think you're equivocating -- I don't see why John has to have in mind your notion of "eternal" when he uses the word.

if you were living 200 years ago and somehow caught a glimpse of "now", how could you describe a car? i think that when john uses "everlasting", he is simply trying to explain what he sees (and can't really explain thoroughly). as far as the equivocation, maybe, but when i look up the definition of eternal (as that's how the experts translated whatever word john actually wrote):
1)Being without beginning or end; existing outside of time.
2)Continuing without interruption; perpetual.
3)Forever true or changeless: eternal truths.
4)Seemingly endless; interminable.
5)Of or relating to spiritual communion with God, especially in the afterlife.
(thanks to dictionary.com)
the first one is obviously the one that i'm using. 3 and 5 seem to be dealing with a slightly different subject (ie not time). 2 and 4 sound just like everlasting.

(Me) Okay. That's what I've been saying the whole time (more or less -- although I offer the simple caveat that it is static because of God's decree, so it is dynamic in the sense that it depends on that decree, and apart from it would not be as it is).

ok.

(Me) I don't see how man's choices are made atemporally.

if man exists outside of time (atemporally) for any "length of time" (flobt), then he "always" (flobt) exists outside of time. even if he is conscious only of linear time, because he existed outside of time, he is still outside of time (just not conscious of it). so, his decisions, no matter when they are made within time, they are also made outside of time (as he also exists there).

(Me) Suppose I have person A and person B. Person A hits person B, so person B runs away, so person A gives chase. Person A's giving chase was dependent upon B's running, but that was dependent upon A's hitting B. I can't see how all the minds making the choices "all at once" can account for this situation, since they interact with each other on the basis of change over time.

you're still thinking within the terms of time. outside of time there cannot be cause-and-effect (as that denotes time). i don't think i can really explain this well (as my mind is so limited in thinking). it's hard for me to fathom thinking without cause-and-effect, but somehow it happens. my theory is that person a already had decided to chase b if he ran away. b's running away only triggered the effect of a chasing him. just like if i hold a loaded gun (safety off, etc) at a moving target (police training target thingys), i have already decided to shoot the target once it starts to move. only when it starts to move do i then act on that decision.
right now, what i'm having trouble with is: if God is outside of time (as is reportedly believed by many), how could he create anything? the very act of creating something denotes time? even if he changed the set of everything, because he is outside of that set, he has "aged" (as he previously observed something else). any thoughts?

[JerryLove]

you're still thinking within the terms of time. outside of time there cannot be cause-and-effect (as that denotes time). i don't think i can really explain this well (as my mind is so limited in thinking). it's hard for me to fathom thinking without cause-and-effect, but somehow it happens. my theory is that person a already had decided to chase b if he ran away. b's running away only triggered the effect of a chasing him. just like if i hold a loaded gun (safety off, etc) at a moving target (police training target thingys), i have already decided to shoot the target once it starts to move. only when it starts to move do i then act on that decision.
right now, what i'm having trouble with is: if God is outside of time (as is reportedly believed by many), how could he create anything? the very act of creating something denotes time? even if he changed the set of everything, because he is outside of that set, he has "aged" (as he previously observed something else). any thoughts?

I suppose we could make a whole field of "atemporal mechanical theory" to start trying to put a vocabulary around the issue.

Yes, trying to explain the issues caused by an atemporal view of existance (or a view of an existance which is outside time) poses problems both conceptual and linguistic. You can have no case-and-effect, you can have no decisions, you can make no actions, because everythign is neccessairily static and unchanging.

An atemporal object cannot change.. and if time is indeed limited (not universal) than time is, itself, an atemporal object and thereby unchangeable.

And since nothing can change, "power" is in an impossable illusion.

[cchrisr]

Originally Posted by JerryLove

I suppose we could make a whole field of "atemporal mechanical theory" to start trying to put a vocabulary around the issue.

Yes, trying to explain the issues caused by an atemporal view of existance (or a view of an existance which is outside time) poses problems both conceptual and linguistic. You can have no case-and-effect, you can have no decisions, you can make no actions, because everythign is neccessairily static and unchanging.

An atemporal object cannot change.. and if time is indeed limited (not universal) than time is, itself, an atemporal object and thereby unchangeable.

And since nothing can change, "power" is in an impossable illusion.

very true--i forgot that even the "act" of making a decision is bound to time (as the change of states indicate time).