Shaul Behr's proposed solution to the paradox of free will and omniscience

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood . . .

-- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

As you might expect from its title. Shaul Behr's novel Ari Barak and the Free-Will Paradox not only tells a sci-fi story but also proposes a solution to one of the paradoxes associated with free will. Although this solution is proposed by fictional characters in the novel, I have to assume that it reflects the author's own views, since it seems unlikely that a sincerely religious man would include in an explicitly religious novel what he himself sees as a fake solution to a very real theological quandary. I will send Rabbi Behr a link to this post after I publish it so that he himself can weigh in if I have misjudged him.

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Rabbi Behr's proposal

The character Rabbi White, through his technology which artificially induces near-death-like experiences in the living, has twice "been witness to the judgment of the Heavenly Court," which he describes as follows:

The soul is laid bare before the Court, with all its achievements and shortcomings. And one of the ways the Court judges you is by showing you a vision of what you could have been, had you made all the right decisions. I subsequently asked myself, How do they know? Where does this 'perfect you' come from?

I thus formulated a hypothesis that the paths not chosen are actually consequential; they do continue to exist even after a person has moved past them; and the alternative outcomes down these channels, among other things, form the basis of how a person is judged.

As the discussion continues, it is proposed that every time a person makes a free-will choice -- which, like Gurdjieff, Rabbi Behr sees as happening only occasionally and for some people essentially never -- God creates parallel universes in which each of the possible choices is realized. When the rabbi's student Ari asks, "How can a soul go on more than one path?" his classmate Howard answers:

I've got it! . . . It's not the same soul! At every decision point, the soul goes down both paths simultaneously! It doesn't realize it, but it has cloned itself -- with one copy going down the right path, and one down the wrong one. And each copy of the soul experiences the path that it has chosen, which either elevates it, or degrades it. And then, at the end of the line, that version of the soul is judged according to the path it followed!

Ari replies:

So let me get this straight. . . . I come to a decision point. I decide I'm going to take the good path. So my soul then goes into that path of the maze, and I experience the world as it unfolds because of my good decision. But . . .  at the same time, a different version, like a clone of my soul, chooses the wrong way. And it goes into a world that's almost the same as the world I'm in, and it experiences a different version of reality. And just like two paths are still close to each other just after they diverge, the two realities look similar, but after they play out some more, they'll become very different. Have I got that right? . . .

But then -- if this is true -- then this solves the classic paradox! God's omniscience versus our free will! People have always asked, how is it possible for us to have free will, when God already knows what we're going to choose? But looking at the world this way, there's no contradiction! We do have free will! At every point, we choose which path our soul will follow. And at the same time, Hashem knows all the paths that can be traversed -- and in fact are being traversed -- however astronomical or even infinite the number! Since He us not bound by time, He can see every path simultaneously, and all the different souls that are traversing each one! The paradox is solved!

I am currently only about two-thirds of the way through the novel, so it is in principle possible that the characters' views will evolve and they will arrive at some very different solution to the paradox. However, given that this proposal is presented as a brilliant discovery, and given that parallel universes containing alternate versions of historical people who have made different choices go on to become central to the plot, this seems unlikely.

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My response

I have flirted with parallel-universe theories myself (see "Lives, the universes, and everything") and am not opposed to the idea in principle. However, I think Rabbi Behr's proposal fails in two important ways. First, it fails to reconcile free will with omniscience. Second, it undermines the basis for any morality driven by love and concern for others rather than by selfishness.

According to the theory, when I make a decision, I am not choosing which of two possible outcomes will be realized. Both will be realized, regardless of which I subjectively experience myself as "choosing." Every time two roads diverge in a yellow wood, I travel both, and do so by not remaining one traveler. One version of me makes the one choice, and another equally real and otherwise identical version of me makes the other. Which is "me," and which is the "clone"? If the question is meaningless, and each is equally "me," then I have no free will. Everything that I can do, I unavoidably will do; and I thus have no ability to choose to do one thing rather than another. If there is a meaningful distinction between "me" and the "clone," then God is not omniscient. If I choose Path A, he will immediately create a clone of me which has chosen Path B; if I choose Path B, he will immediately create a clone of me which has chosen Path A -- but he doesn't know in advance which path I will choose and which clone he will have to create.

My own choice (see "The Supergod delusion") has been to embrace the reality of free will and to reject the omniscience of God. Rabbi Behr thinks he has found a way to have his cake and eat it, too, but -- well, I guess, technically, he has. According to his theory, a different version of me in a parallel universe has made the other choice and is a Calvinist or something. You can, with no logical inconsistency, accept both free will and omniscience -- but only in two parallel universes, and not as one traveler.

Much more serious, in my opinion, are the moral ramifications of Rabbi Behr's theory. By his theory, everything that can happen will happen, and the only choice I make is which of these continually proliferating parallel universes I will subjectively experience as "my" universe.

That means that my experience is the only thing that can be affected by my choices. The pain and happiness experienced by other people cannot in any way be affected by my choices and thus can be excluded from consideration when I make decisions. The novel comes close to making this explicit:

"I feel sorry for the version of my soul that took the wrong choices, though," said Ari wistfully.

"As you should, said Rabbi White. "And hope you're not ever the one who took the wrong path. From your perspective, you want to make sure you're always taking the high road."

"But still, it's not nice to think that there's another me somewhere in a different reality who's messing up my life."

"It's not you, Reb Ari. It's someone else. . . ."

That's what morality comes down to in this model: Make sure it's someone else who messes up his life, not you. Because if it's not you, it will be some other poor schlemiel. (I almost used the more vulgar Yiddish word that comes naturally to me as an American, but I checked myself, knowing that an Orthodox rabbi is going to be reading this. You're welcome, Rabbi.) The total suffering and happiness in the multiverse is fated and absolutely unalterable, regardless of which if its constituent timelines you choose to experience subjectively.

What about people who are already "someone else" in the conventional sense? What we do can have no effect on their experience whatsoever. Let's say I am tempted to do something that would benefit me but harm John. Whatever I "choose," both possibilities will be realized, each in its own parallel universe. In one universe, John is hurt and I benefit. In the other, John is not hurt and I do not benefit. When it comes to me, one of these two selves I will experience subjectively, while the other will be "someone else" -- but whichever I choose, both Johns will be equally "someone else." If I do the right thing and choose not to harm John, John will still be harmed anyway -- in a parallel universe, but another person's subjective experience is already a "parallel universe" as far as I am concerned. Whatever I do, there will be a universe in which John is harmed and another, equally real, universe in which he is not harmed. My only choice is which of these two I will experience subjectively. Seeing that the result for the two Johns will be the same either way, why would I choose anything other than the one that is best for me?

I assume that Rabbi Behr's answer would be that God will judge and punish the version of me that chooses to harm John, and so it is not ultimately in my self-interest to do so. But why would God punish me for doing something that harmed no one? Remember, the harm to John would have been exactly the same if I had made the "right" choice. I'm not really doing anything by the choices I make; I'm just choosing which of two eternally-existing timelines I'm going to look at.