[Avodah] "God who knows the future"

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 11:24:00AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
>> I have no idea what they mean by lemaalah min hazeman

> A contemporary physicist would translate "time is an emergent phenomenon".

Although a contemporary physicist might not consider time to be emergent
(depending on which theory of quantum gravity he backs), a rishon wouldn't
be thinking in terms of "emergent phenomena".

Translation: emergent phenomenon = a feature of the system that emerges
from how the parts are combined, rather than being tracable to the
attributes of the parts.

Yes, it may be accurate in this case to translate the word "attribute"
in Aristo's conception of time as an attribute of process to time
as a phenomenon. (Aristo was a strict reductionist; the thought of
understanding something in ways other than analyzing the parts wouldn't
have crossed a classicalist's mind.)

Rishonim might have described *zeman* that way had they been introduced
to the concept of "emergent phenomena", it doesn't describe the "lemaalah
min". I figure it's something along the lines of: Since HQBH doesn't
change or move, He isn't in any processes and therefore time doesn't
apply.

>> In our worldview, time is a context, a dimension, in which processes  
>> occur.

> I don't know what you mean by "we", paleface! It's true that physicists  
> model physical phenomena that way...

The common people do. Open an organizer, or Outlook. Time is arranged in
a line down the page. The first step along these lines was the shift from
solar hours to our standardized average one. Farmers would treat a day as
running from before down to after dusk -- process based. We have points
on a line -- 6am to 11pm. I am speaking Existentially, not intellectually;
it's how we live with time, regardless of how we think about it.

>> Everyone (except the Ralbag and some outliers most of us never heard  
>> of) holds that G-d knows everything in every detail.

> This shabbos I came across Ibn Daud in HaEmunah HaRama 2:6:2 cited in  
> Wolfson "Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy", p. 217, note 
> 15.

Ibn Daud, like the Ralbag, is more Aristotilian than the Rambam or R'
Saadia Gaon. I am not sure ID even believed in yeish mei'ayin!

...
> Now look at Ta'anis 8b, cited l'halacha in H. Berachos 10:22.  "Someone  
> who goes to measure his harvest prays "May it be Your will, O God, to  
> send a blessing <why not "to bless"?> in the works of my hand". ... if  
> he measured and then prayed it is a false prayer." (I translated the  
> Rambam, not the gemara)

> Why doesn't this prayer request a causal loop? He's already finished  
> harvesting -- the amount of grain is determined....

Because nothing really exists until measured. Not in a Quantum Mechanical
sense, I am not ascribing Chazal that kind of knowledge of physics -- just
Kantian philosophy. In a philosophical one -- we do not / cannot know
the world as it is, only the world as we observe it.

IOW, the blessing between harvest and measuring can only change within
the margin of error of human guestimation of crop yeild.

> I want to critique RAM's (and possibly also RMB's) position more  
> generally.  Naively, when I say "I have free will", I mean that I could  
> have written either "say" or "write" in that previous sentence, and that  
> it is I who determine which of those happens.  When we say that ten  
> years ago someone could predict which of those would happen, we need to  
> redefine "free will".

G-d doesn't "predict", since that implies being able to know someone's
decision based on the inputs -- perfectly accurate description requires
assuming the system is algorithmic. But in any case...

The core of my position is that HQBH wasn't there in "10 years ago"
to Know then what I will decide now. He doesn't know the future,
because He has no present. He just Knows.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
micha at aishdas.org        about things most people don't watch even on
http://www.aishdas.org   Yom Kippur.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter