To.......... Diakonos (18:5717/100)
Diakonos spoke with eloquent passion thusly:

 D> will. But again, the concept of us IN time and space, and God
 D> OUTSIDE of time and space eliminates the notion that God's
 D> foreknowledge requires that man's choices be made for him. So that

        I should, of course, make the dual caveat that not only is the
        material from here on out *proposals* rather than theories or
        laws, but also uniformly consisting of two dimensional analogies
        of a 4-d situation.

 D> if the lines below represent time, moving from the past toward the
 D> future with the "X" being now (in time), then; while God's eternal
 D> (outside of the bounds of linear time) knowledge of what we (within
 D> the bounds of linear time) have yet to experience is sure, and can
 D> be represented by the first line - our material (time and space)
 D> experience is an unfolding one, so that while the past is static
 D> and set and cannot be altered, the matter of our future and the
 D> legitimacy of real choices and real possibilities can be genuinely
 D> represented by the second line.

        I'm going to use your model, if you don't mind.  What I get from
        you is that these illustrations can be labeled thusly:

 D>                                                  \  |  /
 D>                                                    \|/
 D> P >------------X-------> F            --------------X-------
 D>             N /                                    /| \
 D>                                                  /  |   \
            God's POV                                Our POV

        Correct?  What I (and others) have been saying is that our POV,
        from what you say above, is purely *illusory*, and that the only
        valid POV is God's from outside of time (the figure on the
        left).  If this is the case, then this is a valid analogy below:

     I-------......-------------......-------......------I
     I                                                   I
 --->                      time of decision              I
   enter here                                            I
     I                                                   I
     I-------......-------------      -------......------I
               ^---illusion        ^----real opening
                   of an opening

        This room presents a false choice - that is, while it may appear
        that a choice is possible from the POV from someone on the
        inside of the room, for an external observer it is obvious that
        only one exit can be chosen.

        While you may consider the illusion of choice as satisfying the
        conditions of having free will, IMHO, I think it's a sham.

        A further possibility (which you've shied away from, and I've
        only alluded to) is that of multiple histories;  that is:

          ----------->  direction of time      key:  x = yes/no choice
              /----a
      /------x          here, in very short order, we have
  ---x        \----b    *four* possible universes, based upon
      \--\   /-----c    only three (or two, depending on how you
          \-x           wish to classify them) branching events.
             \-----d

        Even here, while one may argue that free will is justified due
        to the actual possibility of each choice, I again assert that it
        is a semantical sham.  To "a", *only* those choices could have
        been made, to "b", only *those* choices could have been made,
        and so on.  Again, free will fails.

        Furthermore, note that these violations of free will would
        *only* be observable in the condition you posit for God - that
        is, *outside* of space-time.  To the person *inside* any of
        these constructs, they would believe to have as much free will
        as... well, as we think we do.  So, in a sense, your repeated
        objection that God is outside of space-time is vital to what I'm
        saying above.

        As a side note, both you and I have been treating time as
        something discrete from space, and this may very well not be the
        case.

        "A second feature that we believe must be part of any ultimate
        [unified] theory is Einstein's idea that the gravitational field
        is represented by curved space-time:  particles try to follow
        the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, but
        because space-time is not flat, their paths appear to be bent,
        as if by a gravitational field.  When we apply Feynman's sum
        over histories to Einstein's view of gravity, the analogue of
        the history of a particle is now a complete curved space-time
        that represents the history of the whole universe.  To avoid
        the technical difficulties in actually performing the sum
        over histories, these curved space-times must be taken to be
        Euclidean. That is, time is imaginary and is indistinguishable
        from directions in space...In the classical theory of gravity,
        which is based on real space-time, there are only two possible
        ways the universe can behave:  either it has existed for an
        infinite time, or else it had a beginning at a singularity at
        some finite time in the past.  In the quantum theory of gravity,
        on the other hand, a third possibility arises.  Because one is
        using Euclidean space-times, in which the time direction is on
        the same footing as directions in space, it is possible for
        space-time to be finite in extent and yet to have no
        singularities that formed a boundary or edge."

        - Hawking, "The Illustrated A Brief History of Time", pp 173-4

        Though tangentially related, this makes things slightly
        different, eh?

 D> It's like two-way memory. We know what has happened because
 D> we experienced it and posses the faculty of memory. We know what is
 D> happening because we are experiencing it and posses the faculty of
 D> cognition. But we don't know what will happen because we have not
 D> yet experienced it and so are given no faculty to access what we've
 D> not yet experienced and so don't know about - though of course some
 D> do claim to possess a faculty of pre-cognition that enables them to
 D> know what has yet to happen in time. This is sort of what I mean by
 D> two-way memory.

        Which, btw, has never been demonstrated to be anything other
        than trend-reading (that is, it didn't take a genius during
        Desert Shield to predict that we would go to war, etc).

 D> God, being in eternity and not bound by linear
 D> time, does experience what we call the future as authentically as
 D> He experiences the past and the now, and so does posses a faculty
 D> to access that knowledge...so that just as we are in the now and
 D> can remember the past, God can (in a sense) remember the past and
 D> the future, both of which He's experienced - or perhaps more
 D> properly, God is currently cognizant of all and experiencing all
 D> time (as He does with space) as an ever present now. I don't see
 D> how any of this eliminates the reality of man making real and
 D> genuine choices as he moves through time. If God's knowledge (past-
 D> memory or immediate cognition) of what we DID choose last year in
 D> no way invalidates the legitimacy of our capacity to have made that
 D> choice, free of any coercion or limiting of real possibilities -

        That's the thing though.  It *is* inherently limiting the real
        possibilities - whether or not we are aware of it.  In your
        posited scenario, only *one* possibility is valid;  that being
        the one experienced/being experienced by God.  Any other
        possibilities or choices are illusory.

 D> possibilities. Because God knows (by experience) what choice you
 D> will make, and because His knowledge is sure and you will make that
 D> choice, this in no way hinders you're actually, independently,
 D> freely making that choice.

        This bit moves away from the mechanistic aspects of time into
        the biochemical/psychological portion.  A possible escape route
        for accurate predictability is the "trend-reading" I note above,
        only raised to the millionth power (or more).  Yet, even this
        breaks down the possibility of free will in a much more
        fundamental (and actual, rather than semantical) level.  How so?

        if (input=="kiss") && (dates > 3)
         frenchkiss();
        else
         lipkiss();

        A lot more complex, perhaps, but still as static.  To produce
        predictability of *individuals* with accuracy, such a model is
        required.




	Finally, as a side note nearly five years later, I've reversed 
	my opinon about this, though it does require a bit of mental 
	gymnastics.  Let's refresh with a diagram.

                                                   \  |  /
                                                     \|/
  P >------------X-------> F            --------------X-------
              N /                                    /| \
                                                   /  |   \
            God's POV                                Our POV

	This, I think, is fairly accurate.  The part I wasn't getting was 
	that it doesn't have to be an either-or situation - both points 
	of view are 100% valid.  From the point of view of God - or any 
	entity outside of time - our "future" can be predicted, because
	the term "future" doesn't mean anything to them.  Meanwhile, as 
	we "travel" forward through time, we can only experience this 
	small slice of "now" - so any decisions we make are truly free.  
	Our future actions are set - but they are the future actions
	we chose freely.