Humans, with limited understanding of consequences, have free will. Still free if omniscient?

Question

If Humans knew all consequences to their possible actions, would we still have free will? Or does free will depend on limited understanding?

Answer 1

God, who provided us with free will, also gave us the ultimate consequences, heaven and hell.

Life just got simpler.

Your welcome.

Answer 2

Your question sounds like it belongs in the realm of philosophy rather than religion and spirituality, but since it's here, I'll answer it from a theological viewpoint.

You have all the free will you want. Even if you were omniscient, it wouldn't matter. Same destination save for the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit to change your heart around. I stand by the doctrine of original sin as condemning man through the fall of Adam. NO ONE merits Heaven on their own. I thought Jesus made that clear enough with his statements on the perfection required by God, and entering heaven maimed rather than having to endure the fires of hell for eternity.

BTW I think this also explains how you can know all the consequences to your possible actions without any magic formulas or science fiction. Without God, you are left in your sins.

Answer 3

We don't have free will to begin with. Such a concept violates the Church-Turing Thesis, and until someone can provide evidence that the universe or quantum physics is capable of implementing a hypercomputer (which would require a nonmaterial Turing Oracle, which a quantum superposition could POSSIBLY serve purpose for but so far the Jury's out), the CTT holds that free will is an impossibility.

Free will requires hypercomputation, and most solutions for hypercomputation are still mathematically computable under certain structures (one hypercomputer would be one that existed in time dilation, which seems possible, though improbable in light of the Einstein equations). So given even one of these computational hypercomputers, free will would cease to exist.

Unless significant evidence can be found of a super-universal essence that is attached to us, free will is a 'no, but further evidence might change that no'.

Answer 4

There is no free will. Our consciousness is just a window into the brain processes that are the interactions between our biological bodies and the world around us. We have the illusion presented to our conscious that our 'soul' has freedom to make decisions. However, we are not one, we are only an eye with limited view into the brain that is us. Blah blah, Hard to understand though. We have free will in the context of our brains being able to measure the pros and cons of our actions, but still sometimes one need is not met because one part of the brain say the Id wants what it wants now and overpowers the superego. Can't remember all of the terms, I need to go back to class...

Answer 5

There are infinite situations where we DO have perfect understanding of the consequences of our actions. This does not limit our free will in making those choices. So my answer is: yes, we would stil have free will. Knowledge does not limit freedom. It multiplies it.

Answer 6

Of course they will still have their free will but, understandingly they will modify their decisions accordingly. Further to free will, human beings have a second in-built characteristic that of intuition which instinctively tells you if you are doing right or wong. This mitigates for limited understanding ! Having said this, some people are so spiritually handicapped that they are amoral.

Answer 7

I think that if we knew the consequences of our actions before we performed said actions, we'd still be free to make bad choices. We'd STILL weigh the good/bad of doing something and not doing it, and in the end pick the one we thought would be best.

Answer 8

God instruments the cut back to how lots loose will a guy could have. For if we had finished loose do we'd even have loose willed ourselves to die or to stay for ever, or to have believed thoroughly in God so as that we could attain a place in heaven. we are all constrained to how lots loose do we've for loose will is the the actual skill of guy. whether, it must be constrained via fact God has a plan for all individuals and that includes people who will perish in hell hearth. that's a try. confident we are constrained via God, reason each time I make a mistake i think terrible, if I had finished loose will i'd have chosen sturdy over evil that I should not be tempted via devil anymore and fall for his evil plans. the better area of being constrained nonetheless is that i do no longer could do each and all of the paintings myself. I basically depart it to God to do the paintings for me, and all I could do is say would God's would be completed.