trubble76 wrote:Surely an omniscient being, when faced with the assertion "the present king of France is bald" and knowing the facts of the matter, would say that the assertion is false. As there is no present King of France, he cannot be bald.

If you prefer to put it that way; both assertions 1. "the present king of France is bald", and 2. "the present king of France is not bald", are false, but as false propositions are unknowable, neither of the above can be known. Likewise with future freely willed actions in a non-determined world.

MrFungus420 wrote:
Yeah...not so much.

Every Gettier counter-example that I have seen seems to be fallacious. According to Wikipedia his two cases are:

Wikipedia wrote:Case 1: Smith has applied for a job, but, it is claimed, has a justified belief that "Jones will get the job". He also has a justified belief that "Jones has 10 coins in his pocket". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of the transitivity of identity) that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket".

In fact, Jones does not get the job. Instead, Smith does. However, as it happens, Smith (unknowingly and by sheer chance) also had 10 coins in his pocket. So his belief that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket" was justified and true. But it does not appear to be knowledge.

This one pulls a bait-and-switch. The belief was not simply "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket". The belief was, "Jones will get the job and he has 10 coins in his pocket". If Jones does not get the job, then the belief is not true, therefore, no JTB.

Wikipedia wrote:Case 2:
Smith, it is claimed by the hidden interlocutor, has a justified belief that "Jones owns a Ford". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of disjunction introduction) that "Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona", even though Smith has no knowledge whatsoever about the location of Brown.

In fact, Jones does not own a Ford, but by sheer coincidence, Brown really is in Barcelona. Again, Smith had a belief that was true and justified, but not knowledge.

And again.

"Jones owns a Ford" may have been justified, but it was not true, therefore, it is not a JTB.

So, how is it that examples of things that are NOT justified true beliefs can be examples of problems WITH justified true beliefs?

If you think you've explained away the problem of the Gettier's counterexamples to the tripartite account, then you have done better than any epistemologist since the article was published in 1963.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/gettier/

In fact JTB has largely been abandoned as capturing what it means to have knowledge about a proposition. There is no consensus on what would be a suitable replacement either.

Most epistemologists have accepted Gettier's argument, taking it to show that the three conditions of the JTB account—truth, belief, and justification—are not in general sufficient for knowledge. How must the analysis of knowledge be modified to make it immune to cases like the one we just considered? This is what is commonly referred to as the “Gettier problem”.

More here

ughaibu wrote:

trubble76 wrote:Surely an omniscient being, when faced with the assertion "the present king of France is bald" and knowing the facts of the matter, would say that the assertion is false. As there is no present King of France, he cannot be bald.

If you prefer to put it that way; both assertions 1. "the present king of France is bald", and 2. "the present king of France is not bald", are false, but as false propositions are unknowable, neither of the above can be known. Likewise with future freely willed actions in a non-determined world.

I am not sure the use of your distinction. The omniscient god would know the truth, that there is no French King, and therefore no bald French King. He cannot know that the French King is bald but that apparent lack of knowledge isn't actually a lack of knowledge, is it?

As for the future freely willed actions, I addressed this both at the beginning and the end of my previous post to you. Care to respond?

trubble76 wrote:As for the future freely willed actions, I addressed this both at the beginning and the end of my previous post to you.

No you didn't, you asked me some irrelevant stuff about gods.

ughaibu wrote:

trubble76 wrote:As for the future freely willed actions, I addressed this both at the beginning and the end of my previous post to you.

No you didn't, you asked me some irrelevant stuff about gods.

Oh, you didn't bother to actually read it then. Fine, suit yourself.

GrahamH wrote:

Smith has applied for a job, but, it is claimed, has a justified belief that "Jones will get the job". He also has a justified belief that "Jones has 10 coins in his pocket". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of the transitivity of identity) that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket".

The un-tensed facts of this scenario, with a bit less vagueness:

On Wednesday 9th April 2014 Smith, a man with 10 coins in his pocket, is appointed as head bottle washer at XYZ Co of Winchester, UK .

"is appointed"

Present tense.

On Monday 7th April 2014 Jones, a man with 10 coins in his pocket, applies for a job as head bottle washer at XYZ Co of Winchester, UK.

"applies"

Present tense.

On the morning of Tuesday 8th April 2014 Walker, HR manager of XYZ Co of Winchester, UK, interviews Smith and Jones for the position of head bottle washer.[
On the evening of Tuesday 8th April 2014 Walker, HR manager of XYZ Co of Winchester, UK, decides to appoint Smith as head bottle washer.
On the afternoon of Tuesday 8th April 2014 Walker, HR manager of XYZ Co of Winchester, UK, decides to appoint Jones as head bottle washer.

"interviews" and "decides"

Both present tense.

This is not "tenseless" or "untensed".

It is a word game with prepositional phrases to put every sentence you used in the present tense.

GrahamH wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Smith has applied for a job, but, it is claimed, has a justified belief that "Jones will get the job". He also has a justified belief that "Jones has 10 coins in his pocket". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of the transitivity of identity) that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket".

The un-tensed facts of this scenario, with a bit less vagueness:

On Wednesday 9th April 2014 Smith, a man with 10 coins in his pocket, is appointed as head bottle washer at XYZ Co of Winchester, UK .
On Monday 7th April 2014 Jones, a man with 10 coins in his pocket, applies for a job as head bottle washer at XYZ Co of Winchester, UK.
On the morning of Tuesday 8th April 2014 Walker, HR manager of XYZ Co of Winchester, UK, interviews Smith and Jones for the position of head bottle washer.
On the evening of Tuesday 8th April 2014 Walker, HR manager of XYZ Co of Winchester, UK, decides to appoint Smith as head bottle washer.
On the afternoon of Tuesday 8th April 2014 Walker, HR manager of XYZ Co of Winchester, UK, decides to appoint Jones as head bottle washer.

Untensed? You have merely used a moving present to keep all verbs in the present tense, which is cheating, IMO!

English is a tensed language, and it's hard to write English sentences without verbs . By all means remove 'is'. These are simply statements of fact without reference to a time of forming those statements.

Wrong.

The prepositional phrases give the time reference.

trubble76 wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

trubble76 wrote:As for the future freely willed actions, I addressed this both at the beginning and the end of my previous post to you.

No you didn't, you asked me some irrelevant stuff about gods.

Oh, you didn't bother to actually read it then. Fine, suit yourself.

Here are the beginning and end of the post mentioned:

trubble76 wrote:As mentioned before, the classification of what is knowable and what isn't seems problematic.
If, in a non-deterministic world, the future is unknowable and thus beyond the ken of an omniscient god, this causes a mismatch between the omniscient god which satisfies your philosophical criteria and the omniscient god which is actually worshipped. How do you resolve this problem?

trubble76 wrote:Your position that no omniscient entity has to know the unknowable, seems sensible but the unknowable is problematic, isn't it? To rehash my initial point, if the future is unknowable, in order to allow omniscience and free will to coexist, does that not create a schism between your understanding of omniscience and that of actual believers? Are you describing a god in which no-one believes? If you have to create a new god in order to defend the proposition from claims of contradiction, surely that means the proposition is defeated anyway?

The first point, about what's knowable and what isn't has been dealt with, if there is no fact, then there is nothing to know. You've had your chance on that, if you can't understand it, tough shit.
The rest is irrelevant questions about gods and believers in gods. You have not in any way addressed the question of future freely willed actions. You have exactly one remaining chance to do so.

MrFungus420 wrote:The prepositional phrases give the time reference.

Thanks for bothering to reply, but TBH I'm not convinced you know much about A-Theory vs B-Theory and tense-less facts, since you have made no reference to it. I don't know much about it either, but it seems possibly relevant to 'timeless omniscience'.

Note that there is literary style of writing in historical t]present tense, where present tense verbs describe past events. The use of present tense has no implications for the temporal ordering of the described events.

Obviously, if I make staments about explicitly past events using present tense verbs I can communicate all the facts of a past event. The present tense of the verbs obviously does not give the time reference, in this case. It gives no time reference and I could make the same statements before, during or after the events described.

Note also that, apparently, some languages do not use tensed verbs at all.

I'm pretty familiar with A-Theory vs B-Theory, and I remain unconvinced. Here's the issue for me.

When we define an entity as 'timeless' or 'outside time', what we're actually doing is treating all time as symmetrical. On this basis, there is no time at which infallible knowledge of everything does not exist. Thus, being timeless doesn't defeat the contradiction. I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise, but I don't think a reasonable case has been made here.

I saw what ughaibu was attempting to do with the knowable, but I think he chose a poor example to illustrate, because the examples were of things that either have no truth value or where the truth value was 'false', so the example was not analogous to the outcomes of decisions, which have clear truth values once the choices have been made. Thus, the outcomes of these decisions are knowable. They may not be knowable prior to the decision, but the knowledge about them is obtainable, therefore they reasonably fall under the umbrella of 'all knowledge', so it's reasonable to expect an infallibly omniscient entity to possess this knowledge, and at all times. If it has to wait until after the decision has been made, it fails to be omniscient.

I think the contradiction stands.

hackenslash wrote:I'm pretty familiar with A-Theory vs B-Theory, and I remain unconvinced. Here's the issue for me.

When we define an entity as 'timeless' or 'outside time', what we're actually doing is treating all time as symmetrical. On this basis, there is no time at which infallible knowledge of everything does not exist. Thus, being timeless doesn't defeat the contradiction. I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise, but I don't think a reasonable case has been made here.

I saw what ughaibu was attempting to do with the knowable, but I think he chose a poor example to illustrate, because the examples were of things that either have no truth value or where the truth value was 'false', so the example was not analogous to the outcomes of decisions, which have clear truth values once the choices have been made. Thus, the outcomes of these decisions are knowable. They may not be knowable prior to the decision, but the knowledge about them is obtainable, therefore they reasonably fall under the umbrella of 'all knowledge', so it's reasonable to expect an infallibly omniscient entity to possess this knowledge, and at all times. If it has to wait until after the decision has been made, it fails to be omniscient.

I think the contradiction stands.

I'm speculating here. Exploring the concepts. The contradiction is expressed in tensed A-Theory. All about being at some time relative to some other time that a decision made. So the 'timeless god' bit disputes that the entity is located at any time. The fact to be known is that decision D made at P(x,y,t).

hackenslash wrote:I think he chose a poor example to illustrate, because the examples were of things that either have no truth value or where the truth value was 'false', so the example was not analogous to the outcomes of decisions, which have clear truth values once the choices have been made.

But in a non-determined world they have no truth value before they are made, so there is nothing to know, and if there is nothing to know, then "it" is unknowable.

hackenslash wrote:Thus, the outcomes of these decisions are knowable. They may not be knowable prior to the decision, but the knowledge about them is obtainable, therefore they reasonably fall under the umbrella of 'all knowledge', so it's reasonable to expect an infallibly omniscient entity to possess this knowledge, and at all times.

I find it quite astounding that, at the present count, there are three active posters who hold that omniscience requires knowing the unknowable. "Knowing" requires the ability to know, both internal and external, it requires that the agent can know. "Unknowability" is a state in which there is a question to which the answer cannot be known. If omniscience requires that the omniscient can do what they cannot do, then it is self-contradictory.
Quite clearly there is no point in discussing whether or not something self-contradictory contradicts anything else, because by the principle of explosion it doesn't. Your "omniscience" allows everything, you've just proved the existence of god, that Mick is infallible about everything, and an infinite number of other absurdities.

Yes, the timeless god bit disputes that the entity is located at any time, but implies that the entity is located at all times. To a timeless entity, time is entirely symmetrical.

That was the discussion I was attempting to have with Samsa earlier in the thread, in which the entity was asserted as timeless, making all times symmetrical, but then including an event at which knowledge was obtained, introducing a temporal asymmetry. That alone is a contradiction. If all times are symmetrical, there can't be a time at which knowledge is acquired, thus the knowledge would have to exist independently of time, retaining the symmetry, and defeating free will.

ughaibu wrote:But in a non-determined world they have no truth value before they are made, so there is nothing to know, and if there is nothing to know, then "it" is unknowable.

This is where it falls down. If there is a point in time at which it is knowable, there is something to be known, even prior to the decision being made. To a timeless entity for which there is total temporal symmetry, there is no time at which this is not knowable.

I find it quite astounding that, at the present count, there are three active posters who hold that omniscience requires knowing the unknowable.

I certainly don't, I just don't think how you classify what is knowable remotely holds water.

"Knowing" requires the ability to know, both internal and external, it requires that the agent can know. "Unknowability" is a state in which there is a question to which the answer cannot be known.

Yes, and the outcome of a choice is not a question to which the answer cannot be known.

If omniscience requires that the omniscient can do what they cannot do, then it is self-contradictory.

Agreed.

Quite clearly there is no point in discussing whether or not something self-contradictory contradicts anything else, because by the principle of explosion it doesn't. Your "omniscience" allows everything, you've just proved the existence of god, that Mick is infallible about everything, and an infinite number of other absurdities.

Utter bollocks. I simply reject your classification of the outcomes of decisions as unknowable. There is a point in time at which this knowledge is available. To an entity for which total temporal symmetry exists, this knowledge is available.

hackenslash wrote:There is a point in time at which this knowledge is available. To an entity for which total temporal symmetry exists, this knowledge is available.

In that case, perhaps you can take up where Mr.Samsa left off and explain how there can be "an entity for which total temporal symmetry exists" in a non-determined world.

There can't.

hackenslash wrote:There can't.

Which is why, in a non-determined world, the future freely willed actions of its inhabitants are unknowable, even to the omniscient.

ughaibu wrote:

hackenslash wrote:There can't.

Which is why, in a non-determined world, the future freely willed actions of its inhabitants are unknowable, even to the omniscient.

Which oddly enough is what pretty much everyone except Mr. Samsa said from the start.

Thommo wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

hackenslash wrote:There can't.

Which is why, in a non-determined world, the future freely willed actions of its inhabitants are unknowable, even to the omniscient.

Which oddly enough is what pretty much everyone except Mr. Samsa said from the start.

Except that has no relevance to any argument I made.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

Thommo wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

hackenslash wrote:There can't.

Which is why, in a non-determined world, the future freely willed actions of its inhabitants are unknowable, even to the omniscient.

Which oddly enough is what pretty much everyone except Mr. Samsa said from the start.

Except that has no relevance to any argument I made.

Should it? I only excluded you because you didn't say it and as far as I can see everyone else who expressed an opinion did. I could have said "everyone" or "almost everyone" but since Ughaibu just mentioned your position I thought I'd be explicit.