Thank you very much.
I didnt completely understand whether the Rabbi means that according to Maimonides, the Holy One, blessed be He, really cannot inform a prophet in this world what so-and-so will do, because then it would be a logical contradiction.

Even without informing anyone, He simply cannot know. Telling a prophet is only an indication of the difficulty. If He knows, then He can also tell a prophet, and then a difficulty arises. The conclusion is that He does not know at all. Look up Newcombs paradox on Wikipedia. I also discussed this at length in my book The Science of Freedom (I think there is also something on the site in an article about free will).

Perhaps the fact that Maimonides did not answer by saying that it cannot be understood strengthens the Shelahs understanding of Maimonidesthat Maimonides really meant that there is no certain knowledge.

The Shelah says his words as an interpretation of Maimonides view.

I now saw that the Or Sameach on that passage writes as I suggested. He says that Maimonides could not explain “and they shall enslave them and oppress them” by saying that knowledge does not compel choice, because “the knowledge of the prophets compels [the choice].” (With this he rejects the Lechem Mishneh, who said that yes, Maimonides could have answered as above, but instead gave a better answer.)
It comes out from this that Maimonides indeed could not “tolerate” the fact that a prophet in our world would know what so-and-so will do and yet so-and-so would still have free choice.
From here we seemingly have two options: either Maimonides held that although the Holy One, blessed be He, knows, He cannot bring His knowledge down into the world;
or it is proven, as the Or Sameach understands Maimonides, that his intention is that there is no absolute knowledge, only knowledge based on the current situation (though it still needs clarification why he says, “Know that the answer to this question is deeper than the sea…”).
There are just two things I still didnt understand.
1) If the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot inform a prophet what so-and-so will do, is there still a logical contradiction here, or does it become a physical contradiction?
2) How did the Rabbi understand that the Shelah says this within Maimonides view? He does build his comments on Maimonides, but it does not seem clear that he claims this is what Maimonides intended.

I didnt understand. You say that the Or Sameach writes that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot transmit the information into the world. Afterwards you write that according to the Or Sameach His knowledge is not certain. That is a different claim.
By the way, in my opinion his words are complete nonsense. If He knows, why shouldnt He be able to tell a prophet? What prevents Him? And if that is impossible for Him, then He is not omnipotent, so why assume that He knows what will be? Maybe in that too He is not omnipotent (and in my opinion that is indeed the case).
See the Shelah עצמו, where he explains his words.

I indeed got confused in the writing.
The Or Sameach says that Maimonides holds that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot transmit the information into the world.
From here I want to bring proof for the Shelahs view (here I got confused and mistakenly wrote Or Sameach) that according to Maimonides Gods knowledge is not certain (that is, there is no knowledge), because otherwise we would be forced to say that Maimonides distinguished between Gods knowledge of the future, which exists, and His ability to reveal it to the world, which does not exist.
If Maimonides really held that, it is absurd, as the Rabbi says, because we have imposed on the Holy One, blessed be He, an even more severe limitation (that He cannot convey information to the world even though He knows it).
Therefore it seems more reasonable that Maimonides intended that there is no knowledge at all, and this is like the Shelahs understanding.
That is, I am using the Or Sameachs understanding regarding the transmission of information into the world (not like the Lechem Mishneh and the Raavad) in a broader way than he himself states, in order to prove that it is reasonable that the knowledge itself also does not exist according to Maimonides.
The importance of this proof is that it helps explain what led the Shelah to read his words into Maimonides, even though at first glance that does not seem to be Maimonides intent.
According to what I wrote, it is understandable where the Shelah got his view from.

Sorry in advance if Im butting into a discussion that isnt mine…

Yair  I dont understand your question. Maimonides answer to “and they shall enslave them and oppress them” is not addressing the problem that God knew in advance that this is what they would do, but a different problemnamely that God decreed that they do so (similar to the difficulty regarding Pharaohs hardened heart). And whereas with knowledge one can explain that God can know without that having any causal effect on the one about whom He knows, and therefore in principle, even if it seems strange, He could also inform someone of it without that having a causal effect on the futurewhen it comes to a decree that obviously cannot be, because the whole idea of a decree is that God determines in advance what will happen. Therefore Maimonides needed different answers thereand the answer explains why they were punished.

david, I did in fact deliberate about this for quite some time, and in the end it seems clearly to me that although Maimonides wording is “thus He decreed that Israel would worship idolatry,” it is quite clear to me that he does not mean a decree in the usual sensethat God decided that this is what would befor two reasons that are really three:

1) What led Maimonides to think that the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed that Israel would worship idolatry? Where is that written in the verse? God simply tells Moses that this is the future reality; where does it say that He decided and determined that this is what would be? (The same applies to the Egyptians, though there is room to distinguish, because there it cannot be just an estimatehow could one estimate such a thing? It is not like saying about the Jewish people that there will be wicked people among them, which is a very plausible estimate, but I wont go into that here.)

2) If it were as you say, Maimonides could have answered as in section 1. (In section 1 I argue that the question never even begins.)

3) In his response Maimonides wrote: “The Creator informed him only of the general way of the world. To what may this be compared? To one who says: among this people there will be righteous and wicked people. Because of this, would the wicked person say that it has already been decreed upon him that he would be wicked, merely because He informed Moses that there would be wicked people in Israel?”
Apparently here Maimonides is indeed giving the answer from section 2that this is not a decree but a report of reality by virtue of what will be in the future. If so, it is not clear why Maimonides previously wrote: “because He did not decree concerning a particular known individual that he would be the one to go astray.” Why is that needed? We have already said that He did not decree at all, but only informed of a future reality. And if He informs of a reality, then certainly He can inform about a particular specific person that he is the sinner (because knowledge and free choice fit together, after all, since “the answer to this question is long…” etc.).

Because of these points, I wrote what I wrote, and apparently this is how the Raavad understood it as well (for he asked why Maimonides did not answer as in the previous chapter, that the two things go together and we cannot understand it), and the Or Sameach (who disagreed with the Raavad and said that Maimonides could not answer that Gods knowledge does not compel choice, because here we are dealing with the knowledge of prophets and “the knowledge of prophets compels [the choice]”), and the Lechem Mishneh (who wrote that yes, Maimonides could indeed have answered this way, but gave a different answer instead).

If God does not know the future, how did He make promises that depend on human decisions? For example, He told Moses that Aaron was on his way to meet him; He knew that the sin of the Amorites was not yet complete, but after some time it would be complete; and many more such cases.

There are cases where He says what is expected to happen absent free choice, and there are cases where He takes the reins into His own hands and takes away our free choice so that something will happen.

Meaning that, aside from taking away free choicewhich apparently is very exceptionalHis statements about the future are only statistical?

Indeed. But even statements about the future are fairly rare. By the way, that is what the Shelah writes in the introduction to his book.