Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Interesting Excerpt from Patrick Todd, The Open Future (2021)

  

Omniscience

 

At this stage, I wish to put to work the points developed in the previous chapter concerning the analytic connection between truth and the beliefs of an omniscient being. It is here, I think, that it becomes most apparent that (as Hartshorne says) “truth is irrelevant to a water”. (These connections will also prove crucial in responding to the further problems to come.) Simply put: insofar as we are prepared to admit that the current beliefs of an omniscient being are irrelevant to a wager—and I think that we are—we should be prepared to admit that truth is similarly irrelevant. Consider the following:

 

A: Let’s bet £5 on rain tomorrow. If there’s rain, you owe me £5, and if now, I owe you £4. Deal?

 

B: Deal.

 

[A day passes, and there is rain

 

A: You owe me £5!

 

B: Not so.

 

A: And why is that?

 

B: Well, yesterday there was an omniscient being—God—and yesterday that being didn’t anticipate rain today. Isn’t that right, God?

 

GOD: Yes, that’s right. With respect to rain, yesterday I had no anticipation concerning what would happen today; I didn’t anticipate rain, although of course. I didn’t anticipate the absence of rain.

 

B: And, God, yesterday, you were omniscient, weren’t you?

 

GOD: Of course.

 

B: So yesterday, it wasn’t true that there would be rain today.

 

GOD: Yes, that’s right.

 

B: So I’m not paying up; what A bet was the case, and we have seen, wasn’t the case.

 

B’s posture in this dialogue if, of course, absurd—but the trick is accurately to diagnose from whence the absurdity comes. One option is to maintain that B’s posture is absurd on grounds that B’s—and God’s—philosophical view of truth is absurd; they are both mistakes not maintain that God could have been omniscient yesterday, despite not anticipating today’s rain. B is not wrong about the nature and content of A’s bet; B is simply wrong to allege that the proposition A was betting was true wasn’t in fact true. But even if such an explanation were available, such an explanation, in my view, is simply not needed. A should respond, n the first instance, not by challenging God’s claim to having been omniscient (although I grant that that may be done), but by challenging the relevance of the supposition that God was omniscient to her winning the bet. On my view, that is, A should respond as follows:

 

A: When yesterday I was betting on rain, I plainly wasn’t betting something like this: “I hereby bet that any omniscient being who might exist currently anticipates rain tomorrow.” Insofar as I wasn’t, I was likewise not betting something like this: “I hereby bet that it is currently true that there will be rain tomorrow.” So the fact that yesterday God’s didn’t anticipate rain today is irrelevant, and so similarly is the fact that yesterday it wasn’t true that there would be rain today.

 

A's posture is reasonable. B’s conception of truth (and God’s claim that yesterday he was omniscient) are also reasonable. But even if that is so, B’s refusal to pay isn’t.

 

The case of an omniscient being further helps to dispel the sense that, on the open future, there is nothing to place a bet on—after all, ex hypothesi, it is not true that it will rain, and not true that it will rail to rain. And if this is so, and we know it, where is the room for betting? But consider:

 

A: Let’s bet £5 on rain tomorrow. IF there’s rain, you owe me £5, and if not, I owe you £5. Deal?

 

B: Well, unfortunately, there’s nothing really to bet on here. For here is an omniscient being—God—and right now, God does not anticipate rain tomorrow, and God does not anticipate an absence of rain tomorrow. Isn’t that right, God?

 

GOD: That’s right.

 

B: So unfortunately, any betting here makes no sense. If you were going to bet on rain tomorrow, you would have to betting that God currently anticipates rain tomorrow. And fi I were going to bet on no rain tomorrow, I would have to be betting that God currently anticipates no rain tomorrow. But, as we have just seen, God has no anticipation either way at this stage, and so it would be senseless for us to place bets on what God’s anticipations are on this matter; God has no such anticipations.

 

A: Well, OK—that may be senseless, given what God just said, but why do we have to place bets on God’s anticipations? Why can’t we just place bets on rain tomorrow?

 

B: But, look, placing a bet “on rain” tomorrow is equivalent to placing a bet on the claim that any omniscient being anticipates rain tomorrow. So, again, there is no space to simply bet “on rain” without betting that any omniscient being anticipates rain.

 

A: Let me try again. We don’t have to place bets on God’s current anticipations regarding rain tomorrow. We can simply, by saying some relevant words, agree that any scenario with rain tomorrow shall therefore be a scenario in which you owe me £5, and any scenario with no rain tomorrow shall therefore be a scenario in which I owe you £5—regardless of whether, in the envisaged scenario, God had previously anticipated rain or instead no rain. Shall we agree?

 

B: OK. We shall.

 

And all is well. A and B have bet on rain tomorrow, but have no need for acts about whether it will rain tomorrow. (Patrick Todd, The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021], 127-29)