Skyscript Astrology Forum

Trying out a simple logical exercise, some fun as well; let's see how it goes ...

Consider a thought-experiment involving the future. Take a future year, say 2025 and let's pose a YES/NO question to God.

Question to God: At this moment, do you have a copy (in any form) of all the newspapers that would exist, for each day of the year 2025?

(The underlying assumption in the question is the belief in God)

What do you think God is going to answer (assuming God will tell the truth)?

Take your pick.

In the question Newspaper was chosen, because it seems to give a better feeling (or mental aid) to understand/represent the events and state of the world at a given time.

If you think God is going to say YES;
=> then it would mean that you believe in a strict form of determinism, leaving no room for free will.
This could be denoted as hard determinism. Let's call this hard determinism as HD, and the mental-framework with this belief as MF-A
In this model, prediction might seem easier compared to the next one; because God knows the future and we try to find out what that it is.

If you think God is going to say NO;
=> then it would mean you don't believe in a strict form of determinism. It allows free will. It also means that you think that God does not know the future with certainty.
Let's call the mental-framework with this belief as MF-B
In this model, if you predict something for the year 2025 and ask God today - whether I am right? It is possible that God will say - I don't know.

This belief system demarcation (MF-A and MF-B) might have no consequence for most of us. But it does seem to have some implications for those trying to gauge the degree of determinism (the means to do so is not a concern here).

Suppose HD is True -> and if you were operating under MF-B; then you are at a possible disadvantage to miss seeing it. Sort of - it is difficult to find something that you don't seek.

Suppose HD is False -> then it could be argued that if you are operating under MF-A, you could get much closer in identifying the exact degree of determinism than if you were operating under MF-B.

There's actually another possibility. And that's that there are an infinite number of possible newspapers, and that choices made narrow down the number more and more until eventually the day arrives and we've singled out the specific future that we ourselves are living in - this would not preclude an infinite number of potential future all of which were known by god. We could add into this a number of 'likely' choices taken - with some choices being more likely than others due to the pattern of past behaviours or the desire to make the easier choice in terms of stress.

Really your question need not be so complex or wordy - you're just asking do you believe in a deterministic future, one which the future cannot be determined due to free will, or something in between.

Paul,

There's actually another possibility. And that's that there are an infinite number of possible newspapers, and that choices made narrow down the number more and more until eventually the day arrives and we've singled out the specific future that we ourselves are living in - this would not preclude an infinite number of potential future all of which were known by god. We could add into this a number of 'likely' choices taken - with some choices being more likely than others due to the pattern of past behaviours or the desire to make the easier choice in terms of stress.

Thanks for your response. You have described this very well.

The question I framed in such way to sort of illustrate God's perspective - if one selects 'No' as the answer to the question then it would mean that God is unable to peek successfully into the future due to our free will.

Vasanth

Newspapers are masters of the UNTRUE, THE BIASED.

Why would God truck with page after page of bias?

If you're looking for Truth (with a capital T), you're not going to get ANY closer with a newspaper.

Reword the question, I'll reword my answer.

As time is holographic, I think that no matter what happens, God will NOT in any way be "surprised."

James

James,

Newspapers may be biased, but the 'Newspapers of 2025' are still artifacts of future. So the question is really, if God has access to their contents. Anyway let's not get into these technicalities. It is in the question to just serve as a mental aid.

You have stated your thoughts ...

Atlantean wrote: As time is holographic, I think that no matter what happens, God will NOT in any way be "surprised."

James

Vasanth

I think we could see that God cannot know the future state of the world with certainty, if we have any degree of free will.

wanted to add few more points ...

Let's try to understand free will from God's perspective and not the person who is exercising the free will. What would be free will according to God? It would be the ability to choose an option without God's foreknowledge. Note that God may be fully aware of all the options present to you when you make the choice; but if he also knows what you would choose, then it is not free will, it would be fate.

Let's pose another question - Can God know about any future event with certainty ? It could be easily seen that if we allow any degree of free will involved with the event, God cannot know for sure if that event will occur or when that event will occur.
[here we are concerned with events involving human action and not natural/physical phenomenon].

To illustrate this, let's design a simple system, which will start at the beginning of the year.

In a village, there lives a man called Harry. Every day Harry follows the following pattern:
1. Go to the village temple
2. Open the box in the temple. The box has a note from God, mentioning either 'chair' or 'desk'
3. Based on the note; either make a chair or a desk
A trader passes each day through the village. As soon as he sees 50 chairs with Harry, he will buy it by paying 1 silver coin. Similarly as soon as he sees 100 desks with Harry, he will buy it by paying 1 gold coin.

Harry and the trader have no free will, they follow the above sequence without fail.

At the beginning of the year, can God predict exactly when Harry will receive a silver coin and when he will receive a gold coin ?
He certainly can - because he is in control of what Harry makes each day.

Let's introduce free will ...

Once a month, Harry is allowed to exercise his free will by not coming to the temple. He can choose that day and is allowed to do one of the following ->
1. Make a chair
2. Make a desk
3. Break a chair
4. Break a desk
5. Make both chair and desk
6. Do nothing

So here God doesn't know two things:
1. During the month, when Harry will decide not to come to the temple?
2. what option out of the 6 above, he is going to choose on that day?

In this scenario, at the beginning of the year, can God predict exactly when Harry will receive a silver coin and when he will receive a gold coin? He cannot.
[Here one observation - God cannot afford the exercising of free will as the event that he is trying to control draws close]

This inability of God to predict with certainty in the presence of our free will, might not seem a concern to us. But let's try considering God's perspective. Consider two kinds of systems:
1. System-A
- Simple System with only one possible outcome - everything pre-determined
- God knows the exact future
- No free-will
- No objectives involving free-will can fail (since No free-will)

2. System-B ->
- Complex System with Multiple outcomes possibility
- God doesn't know the exact future
- Allows free-will
- Possibility of objectives involving free-will can fail

The point to consider is that God can get away from building System-B and build System-A instead; by introducing free-will into System-A. How can he do so? He can do so by a simple trick -> The free-will needs to look like free-will only to us who are exercising the free will and not to God. If God is able to execute this trick, why he needs to build System-B where he himself doesn't know future states?
Of course, one could argue that there could be no need for God to know the future states with certainty.

Paul wrote:There's actually another possibility. And that's that there are an infinite number of possible newspapers, and that choices made narrow down the number more and more until eventually the day arrives and we've singled out the specific future that we ourselves are living in - this would not preclude an infinite number of potential future all of which were known by god. We could add into this a number of 'likely' choices taken - with some choices being more likely than others due to the pattern of past behaviours or the desire to make the easier choice in terms of stress.

Really your question need not be so complex or wordy - you're just asking do you believe in a deterministic future, one which the future cannot be determined due to free will, or something in between.

Hi Paul,

Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics that you are referring to leaves me - as an astrologer - with a question that physicists wouldn't need to care about:

If everything that could happen actually does happen in some world, how does this relate to astrology?

While I assume that the astrological circumstances given at a certain time and in a certain place may potentially manifest themselves in various ways, don't they nevertheless limit the infinite possibilities that the many-worlds theory takes for granted?

Or does astrology simply describe what has the highest probability to occur? Can events take place completely out of astrological context? I do have my doubts...

More likely, astrology describes the hidden or implicit order that is underlying the apparent randomness, according to David Bohm.

Just some thoughts.

Michael Sternbach wrote: If everything that could happen actually does happen in some world, how does this relate to astrology?

While I assume that the astrological circumstances given at a certain time and in a certain place may potentially manifest themselves in various ways, don't they nevertheless limit the infinite possibilities that the many-worlds theory takes for granted?

Or does astrology simply describe what has the highest probability to occur? Can events take place completely out of astrological context? I do have my doubts...

More likely, astrology describes the hidden or implicit order that is underlying the apparent randomness, according to David Bohm.

Just some thoughts.

Right well we shouldn't rule out the notion that if there are many worlds, of which there are an infinite number, then perhaps it would demonstrate that actually astrology is a load of rubbish and clearly the same astrological signatures described an infinite number of things at all times. That's one approach. Obviously as astrologers we tend to move away from that approach.

The other is that the futures are indeed limited, though not necessarily always by astrological signature, but instead by the narrow scope of will of each individual person. We should not assume that because people have free will that there are an infinite number of examples in which they do an infinite number of things. In a great majority of those infinite worlds a person may well make the exact same choice, or have the same thing befall them, and indeed could do so in every single future.
I tend to feel in fact that the themes of what will happen in our life will be pretty much consistent across all futures, if we accept this theory, but how we react or deal with them may differ based on our previous experience in how we dealt with that kind of theme in the past. A great deal of this may well be outside of our control. In addition I personally do not think all things which happen to a person is being clearly described by astrology - whilst someone may have some difficult transit or period of life and whilst under that period of time they may, say, be hit with a car and die, I do not necessarily think that the astrology is specific to a degree to always demonstrate death. It may be, say, carelessness or being prone to accident. But the scope of severity would differ.

In other words astrology may not describe every specific thing to befall us, even accidents, but may well describe themes, the scope of those themes being not defined astrologically.

If that's the case we can still have our infinite number of futures, each of which sharing a given theme, if we happen to be alive in them, but the scope of which differs due to our previous choices as well as the choices of others around us, and yet, subjectively or otherwise, we still undergo a similar theme or feeling or patterns of events.

That said, going back to your probability point, I do think that as creatures we're very often creatures of habit first and foremost. And so we tend to react in similar patterns due to our upbringing and genetics, and previous experiences, a lot of which we have little conscious control over unless we make specific inroads in that direction working on being more conscious of ourselves and being more mindful about our choices. The more we do this, I tend to imagine that the fatalistic aspects of our own personality have less of a grip over us, or, rather, alter so that the grip they have over us differs as I think there will always be issues we struggle with or are less conscious of. After all most of us just want to find a sense of peace and happiness in our lives.
So I think with that in mind there are a great deal of more probable realities.

I would also move this another way, prior to our birth we could say the same thing about infinite universes, and so there are examples where we, our parents, our grand parents etc. are never born let alone for us to be, or where circumstances dictate that our parents have a child at a different time to our birth, altering either 'us' (whatever that is) or at least our horoscopes. And so even with all of what we said before, we're only going by that fraction of infinity (which would be no less than infinite) in which we're actually born at the time and location etc. that we are.

Personally when we think of it in all these terms it becomes clear that we're too simplistic a people to fully ever grasp all these infinite choices and implications and then we need to ask, does it matter anyway? Either we're going to make our choices and those are determined and choice is merely an illusion, or we will make choices and feel they have a real difference. But either way we still have to live int his life and do the best thing we can do, and think that is what most of us do. And I think in doing so we make our futures for us, which we may later experience as liberation or as bad luck, we make our fate for the most part. Then there are things outside the locus of our control which befall us. Astrology is somewhere in the middle of all this describing themes and circumstances in which we find ourselves, we bring ourselves to those circumstances and we react accordingly and we may perceive that reaction, depending on how mindful we are, as fate or not. And regardless of how mindful we are, our choices may well be illusions anyway.

Thanks Paul for your profound reply, you touch on a few very important questions that invite further discussion.

Paul wrote:

Michael Sternbach wrote: If everything that could happen actually does happen in some world, how does this relate to astrology?

While I assume that the astrological circumstances given at a certain time and in a certain place may potentially manifest themselves in various ways, don't they nevertheless limit the infinite possibilities that the many-worlds theory takes for granted?

Or does astrology simply describe what has the highest probability to occur? Can events take place completely out of astrological context? I do have my doubts...

More likely, astrology describes the hidden or implicit order that is underlying the apparent randomness, according to David Bohm.

Just some thoughts.

Right well we shouldn't rule out the notion that if there are many worlds, of which there are an infinite number, then perhaps it would demonstrate that actually astrology is a load of rubbish and clearly the same astrological signatures described an infinite number of things at all times. That's one approach. Obviously as astrologers we tend to move away from that approach.

Or... we could consider that the planets are hypothetically able of chaotic movement according to modern astronomy, so a world in which something out of line with our astrological calculations happens would have to be one where the planets have altered their courses.

The other is that the futures are indeed limited, though not necessarily always by astrological signature, but instead by the narrow scope of will of each individual person. We should not assume that because people have free will that there are an infinite number of examples in which they do an infinite number of things. In a great majority of those infinite worlds a person may well make the exact same choice, or have the same thing befall them, and indeed could do so in every single future.
I tend to feel in fact that the themes of what will happen in our life will be pretty much consistent across all futures, if we accept this theory, but how we react or deal with them may differ based on our previous experience in how we dealt with that kind of theme in the past.

And on new insights we may have gained meanwhile.

A great deal of this may well be outside of our control. In addition I personally do not think all things which happen to a person is being clearly described by astrology - whilst someone may have some difficult transit or period of life and whilst under that period of time they may, say, be hit with a car and die, I do not necessarily think that the astrology is specific to a degree to always demonstrate death. It may be, say, carelessness or being prone to accident. But the scope of severity would differ.

In other words astrology may not describe every specific thing to befall us, even accidents, but may well describe themes, the scope of those themes being not defined astrologically.

If that's the case we can still have our infinite number of futures, each of which sharing a given theme, if we happen to be alive in them, but the scope of which differs due to our previous choices as well as the choices of others around us, and yet, subjectively or otherwise, we still undergo a similar theme or feeling or patterns of events.

So you seem to be saying that astrology and/or the human inclination to keep repeating the same behavioural patterns are in fact seriously limiting the validity of the many worlds hypothesis.

That said, going back to your probability point, I do think that as creatures we're very often creatures of habit first and foremost. And so we tend to react in similar patterns due to our upbringing and genetics, and previous experiences, a lot of which we have little conscious control over unless we make specific inroads in that direction working on being more conscious of ourselves and being more mindful about our choices. The more we do this, I tend to imagine that the fatalistic aspects of our own personality have less of a grip over us, or, rather, alter so that the grip they have over us differs as I think there will always be issues we struggle with or are less conscious of. After all most of us just want to find a sense of peace and happiness in our lives.
So I think with that in mind there are a great deal of more probable realities.

That brings to mind an idea proposed by Dane Rudhyar and others that we can sort of rise over the influences of the planets. This however would go hand in hand with becoming more susceptible to the fixed stars. - Needless to say that the stars have always been symbolical of higher possibilities and potentials.

I would also move this another way, prior to our birth we could say the same thing about infinite universes, and so there are examples where we, our parents, our grand parents etc. are never born let alone for us to be, or where circumstances dictate that our parents have a child at a different time to our birth, altering either 'us' (whatever that is) or at least our horoscopes. And so even with all of what we said before, we're only going by that fraction of infinity (which would be no less than infinite) in which we're actually born at the time and location etc. that we are.

Right, we may have probable birth charts. Now, I'm waiting for a software that can calculate them...

Personally when we think of it in all these terms it becomes clear that we're too simplistic a people to fully ever grasp all these infinite choices and implications and then we need to ask, does it matter anyway? Either we're going to make our choices and those are determined and choice is merely an illusion, or we will make choices and feel they have a real difference. But either way we still have to live int his life and do the best thing we can do, and think that is what most of us do. And I think in doing so we make our futures for us, which we may later experience as liberation or as bad luck, we make our fate for the most part. Then there are things outside the locus of our control which befall us. Astrology is somewhere in the middle of all this describing themes and circumstances in which we find ourselves, we bring ourselves to those circumstances and we react accordingly and we may perceive that reaction, depending on how mindful we are, as fate or not. And regardless of how mindful we are, our choices may well be illusions anyway.

Well, then we would be back in the Newtonian Universe where things are predetermined. - Practically speaking, I think it does make a huge difference whether we think of our life as predestined or not. Moreover, the question how astrology relates to quantum mechanics is interesting from a scientific point of view.

Michael Sternbach wrote: Or... we could consider that the planets are hypothetically able of chaotic movement according to modern astronomy, so a world in which something out of line with our astrological calculations happens would have to be one where the planets have altered their courses.

Right! I guess I'm sticking to those infinite number of worlds which will have the planetary positions in the same place - of course if we took this too far we'd be altering universal 'constants' like gravity etc. so I think we need to reduce the scope to just universes in which we exist, born at the same time and place as we have been in a universe with the same basic properties.

That said, really all the original post wants to know is if we have free will or the future is laid out before us and we merely walk in the footsteps without realising those choices have been made for us.

And on new insights we may have gained meanwhile.

Right, in fact this is actually how I personally view astrology and things like it. We have some free will, but not endless free will - we are not gods. Our free will is constrained, sometimes by external forces beyond our control, sometimes by the shackles of our own personality and our own experiences and mindset. Whilst paradigm shifts occur, they do not occur with regularity - and many of those have many precedents along the way. So when I consider something like forecasting with astrology (or when I used to do tarot) I typically find myself envisioning a road with many tributaries, but we typically walk steadfast on the road we're on making choices based on our previous experiences of similar choices we've made before. How did we deal with that Saturn-like thing before, chances are we may find ourselves at that cross roads again making a similar choice, but have we learned something from the previous experience? This may inform the choices we make in the future.

I don't buy into the idea the Stoic philosophy that all our choices are illusions. Mostly because whether true or not, it doesn't offer me helpful information, because to a real person they feel like they need to make a conscious choice and we're forced into agnosticism about whether they really are or not, so we may as well go along with the notion that they are. It at least corresponds to our own perceptions of what we're doing. I also find it less empowering and less enriching to say "who cares, you may lose your job, be unable to pay your mortgage, have your house repossessed - you can do nothing about it, so just let go and let nature take its course". Which isn't to say I don't recommend mindfulness and practicing techniques to be less attached to our temporal circumstances, but rather to acknowledge that we have choices to make (and in practice if those answers are predetermined it doesn't affect the anxiety of the moment anyway).

That brings to mind an idea proposed by Dane Rudhyar and others that we can sort of rise over the influences of the planets. This however would go hand in hand with becoming more susceptible to the fixed stars. - Needless to say that the stars have always been symbolical of higher possibilities and potentials.

To a degree that's true, I like to think my 'version' is more moderate - and more forgiving. Rudhyar almost makes out that we are gods in this universe, our very thoughts shaping reality, not just for ourselves, but for the whole world around it, such that a stray thought can have calamitous consequences. I am somewhere in the middle here. I do think our thoughts to a degree can build up our reality and affect things, but I would scale this down dramatically and I would not make it so binary. From Rudhyar I get the feeling that all which occurs is as a result of our consciousness, or, usually, our lack thereof. I'm much more forgiving in my outlook. The world, for me, is not split into everything which befalls being as a result of our conscious thoughts versus our absence of making conscious choices.

I am really not a big fan of Rudhyar's falling brick example. I mentioned this before in another context.

Rudhyar, The Practice of Astrology, p. 26.

If a brick falls upon the man's head as he walks along the street, it is the man's responsibility. He walked into the field of the brick's fall. He happened to the brick, because he is a conscious individual and the brick only a piece of universal nature.

For me, sometimes bricks just fall. It's not because we lapsed in our consciousness - we are not gods for which every stray thought interacts with a brick and causes it to fall.

For me we walk along a path and our ability to see along that path is limited. Astrology, and tools like it, allow us to examine that path and also the tributaries which break off it. Typically people want to know, if I continue on this path, what choices will I have, or what situation will I find myself in. And really people want to choose the paths which offer them the most choice later down the road, as it gives them more freedom.

For me it's less interesting if those choices are predetermined, because they don't feel like they're predetermined, they feel like they're very meaningful. It doesn't mean we need to get pulled down by anxiety, we can detach from judging ourselves for making a poor choice, practice compassion and un-attaching from our circumstances so that we can find serenity in world full of difficult choices.

Greetings Vasanth,

Interesting question, a question that has plagued and/or intrigued many...

Let's play the game that we could somehow get indications to the truth (which is probably already determined otherwise...)

My comments below are based on my understanding of what God is and is not. Hence, they might not be relevant to you unless you share the same premises.

Consider a thought-experiment...

One premise of God is that God is the only uncreated creator and originator of every & all created beings. God is one and he is the creator of every "other than him". He is unique for he is unlike any of his creations.
Hence, God is also the creator of logic and we use logic to argue and to understand things. Logic (being a creation) can only be used to understand that which is/was created and NOT the creator himself. Therefore, getting an answer from logic (a creation) to a question posed to God (the creator) is (in the least) confusing and ....?

Consider a thought-experiment involving the future. Take a future year, say 2025 ...

What is the future to God? Following the above premise, even time is a creation of God. Hence, what was, what is and what will be, probably has no meaning in/with God. When we pose a question to God of what will be, we immediately think of God lilke any creation who is bound by the spacetime continuum. God is the creator of spacetime continuum and hence, "above" the spacetime continuum and not bound by it. We are bound by the spacetime continuum and so we speak of the future. However, the past, present and future are but "one-thing" to God. Everything that happened, is happening and will happen in our understanding and dimension has already happened with God (or simply put, God does not "move" in time/space and time/space does not dictate God...).

Question to God: At this moment, do you have a copy (in any form) of all the newspapers that would exist, for each day of the year 2025?

Short answer: yes.
Long answer: This "newapaper" is the akashic record (in the eastern belief) and lauh mahfuz (in the islamic belief). The knowledge of these records is with God and hence, unbound by time and is/was/already happened as one entity...(?).

What do you think God is going to answer (assuming God will tell the truth)?

Another option: he might not want to reveal the answer...

If you think God is going to say YES;
=> then it would mean that you believe in a strict form of determinism, leaving no room for free will.

Not necessarily... Foreknowledge does not necessarily compel anyone to behave the way he behaves or going to behave. Assume that I have been given the foreknowledge of someone's action in the future with 100% accuracy. When he did what he did (by his own choice or even by a different causal agent), it is not my foreknowledge that compels him to do it. I cannot influence him in anyway, manner or form even though I know exactly what he is going to do (especially if I don't tell him!).

If you think God is going to say NO;
=> then it would mean you don't believe in a strict form of determinism. It allows free will. It also means that you think that God does not know the future with certainty.

The absence of foreknowledge is not an evidence of free-will as foreknowledge is not the mechanism by which things occur...or does not occur!

In short, I do not know!
BUT I know this much - God knows!