Fate & Other Thoughts

[Magikarp]

A lot of people believe in free will. I remember starting a thread back here some time ago that brought some people to question how much control over their life they really have. I've had some time to rethink some things, and I thought I would make a thread about it.

The conception of free will is that we are unbounded by destiny. I cannot bring myself to believe such a thing: if time was rewound, wouldn't the same events just repeat themselves? Based upon this, wouldn't it be logical to assume that the future is, essentially, planned out? Do we really make "decisions," or are we just composed of terribly complex algorithms that spew out these things called decisions? I tend to think of the human mind as the apotheosis of a computer; and yet, because it is so complex, analyzing it is virtually impossible.

And then you have death. What is the purpose of life if you forget all things in death? I guess you could claim that the purpose of life is to claim your place in the afterlife, but since I'm an aetheist, I'm going to assume that death means that you just lose your awareness and stop existing.

Just a few thoughts. And, if you do grace this thread with a response, don't say bullshit (Ie, "I know I can make decisions because I make them every day!").

I look forward to Roach's and Cxoli's responses .

 

[cxoli]

I look forward to Roach's and Cxoli's responses

That makes me feel special

I'm not sure if free will exists or not. It seems logical to think that we're just making "decisions" based on some sort of complex programming. This makes sense if you're athiest, and if you're Christian it still makes sense (in a way) since it's hard to have an all-knowing, all-seeing God without having predestination. I would like to believe in free will, and I do to some extent (eg taking responsibility for your actions), but logically it doesn't seem to make that much sense. It's also easier to blame things on cruel fate then on a supposedly "loving" God.

As for death, from an athiest's point of view, I suppose it can either take meaning out of life or add meaning to it, depending on how you look at it. You can see it as making life pointless since you'll lose everything and eventually your memory will just fade away, or you could look at it as though it makes life more worthwhile because you have such a short amount of time to make sure that you're remembered because you did something important while you were able. (Though I could be wrong since I'm not athiest and am just making assumptions.) Either way, you just end up in the ground. I like the athiest version of death better than the idea of Heaven and Hell, though.

I guess the bottom line is that I don't know.

 

[WilliamDell]

I do think we have free will. While it may be true that if given another chance at some things in our lifes and without knowing that you were give another chance (say you were back at that point in time with the same memories and such you had before) to do something again, many times the same thing would happen, but that doesn't always have to be the case.

I know there were many times in my life that I've had to make a split-second decision and that decision doesn't seem to have any real effect sometimes, but given enough of these decisions in a persons life, you would find that if several (maybe even a few depending on what decisions they were: i.e. - slamming the brakes or swerving from hitting something) decisions had gone differently then your life would probably be different. And if you take into account, many people's lives, and all of the many small decisions they make every day, it's easy to see how things could possibly change if they were redone. What I'm basically saying is support of a chaos theory of the world, which I could also say would have an impact on the world if even one decision were different than what it had been in the redoing your life case.

What I'm saying is all hypothetical though, and since what I said can't be done (going back and living your life again), I have no concrete proof, I guess. But you really should think of everything you do having an impact on the world around you, because whether you realize it or not you ARE impacting things around you in some way. Heh one example of this is that everything has its own gravity field, even you and I, and gravity extends to infinity, though very small and insignificant; this does show that even if it is a miniscule influence, we do have an influence nonetheless on our surroundings.

Hmm, not sure if I'm still on-topic or not, oh well. As I was saying, we influence others and our fates by everything we do, so I would think that in that perspective an absolute fate of death is destined but the way in which it comes is totally up to us and all of the small and big decisions and what they cumulate in to. Basically, the purpose of your life, whether your an atheist or otherwise, is to try and make decisions that either benefit you, benefit others, or both or decisions that benefit no one. It's your decision in the end, and our conscience and egos and whatnot can all affect which decision we will make, but our minds can overcome those things and we will do what we want to do.

 

[minny]

we dont have free will in a sence because lets just say your fate was to spill your soup now if you dont know that you are going to spill soup how will you prevent something that hasnt happend?

 

[Arkillo]

I refuse to believe that everything is predestined, and that we have no control over our own lives. If that were the case, then what would be the point of living anymore?

 

[Jason the Destroyer]

Destiny. An interesting topic, but kind of a moot point. I look at it this way. There is kind of a half-destiny. We are sort of predetermined to do things based on our personalities. If something happens that changes our personalities, say the death of a loved one or the experience of war, we'd change the way we act in the future. So destiny is more of a short term thing, being tied to our whims of the time.

 

[c9h13no3]

Either way, I don't sit around thinking about it.

 

[Samsara]

Destiny and fate are two things i am deeply scared of. I really don't like the idea of someone other than yourself in charge of your life.

 

[Korittke]

You get the idea of philosophical destiny wrong. There's no power, force or book that controls your life, there's nothing that controls your life other than exerything that exists. Now do we have free will or not? It depends on other questions.

A) Do you believe that the physical system is closed by action and reaction?
B) Do you believe that your mind and consciousness is part of the physical system?

Obviously if you agree to both of these there is absolutely no way for free will to exist. If you believe that your consciousness, feelings and thoughts cannot be part of the physical system because they only exist virtually as it seems and it is impossible to transfer them, then free will could be possible as the mind would be able to take decisions undependant on your surroundings.
The problem you have then is: If you don't take decisions depending on something, why are they decisions? They are not. If you decide based on absolutely nothing (which would be the case if you don't decide based on what you know etc.) then you're not deciding, then your decision is nothing, it's not even random, there's no real aspect in it.
Free will can't exist, because the idea of free will doesn't make any sense. If you think free will exists when you take decisions for no reason then that's just ignorant, it's just not 'free will'. If they are based on something it's not free will either because they are then surely part of the action-reaction system. This also means that if a scene in life would be repeated, if you could travel back in time, everything would be the same and you wouldn't know that you travelled in time. I'm not talking about the movie-like time traveling though.
So as you see there's not much of a point in thinking that you can decide freely. The world and our lives are definately destined, but this doesn't mean, as some people may think, that there is no point in life. As long as you're part of the action-reaction system you do have 'impact' on the world, it's just that your impact is based on other impacts.

 

[Snagg]

people say if everything's predestined, what is the point of living?


Does there need to be a point?

 

[RoaCh of DisCord]

Hmm..interesting thoughts, and thanks for thinking of me while creating this thread . Right now, as I sit here in my room..listening to music, and replying to this topic on battleforums...has it already been planned out? Is this just another small part of some big scheme? Are we just simply playing the rolls of characters on an already written script? I say no. I believe in free will totally. I don't believe that time is "planned" out, and everything that we do in our lives is set in stone and cannot be changed. The outcome of our future is our choice, and can be changed by what we decide to do at any time. Everything that we do in our life ends up crearting a chain of reactions, this is true, but it starts out as a choice, and along the path of life we can still make several decisions based on our own thoughts. Everything we do, in my opinion, is by choice...and directly affects our future. Basically, we are the ones that create the future. We CHOOSE to take the path that we do... If we have DECIDED to take a seperate path from the one that we are taking now, our life could have been totally different. Of course you could say that it's just part of the overall plan of life..but I just don't think it works that way.

As you say above, rygon, "if time was rewound, wouldn't the same events just repeat themselves? Based upon this, wouldn't it be logical to assume that the future is, essentially, planned out?"...it may sound logical, but CAN time really be rewound? Can we just go back in time...and re live what has already happened? Sure if it were a cassette tape in a VCR..and we hit rewind, and play again, everything would happen in the same exact way...but time cannot rewound. Time is simply a measurement in my opinion. It doesn't even really exist...not in the way that you're explaining. Once a second is gone, it is gone forever. It can never be recovered, and the near coming seconds, that are still in the future are not planned out. Basically, whatever happens...happens.

 

[Korittke]

For the love of Gawd, determinism is not about things being 'planned out' or written down somewhere, being controlled by an unavoidable force. It is merely the fact that there is no free will, and that the world is a chain of events.

"The outcome of our future is our choice, and can be changed by what we decide to do at any time. Everything that we do in our life ends up crearting a chain of reactions, this is true,"
" but it starts out as a choice"
How do you think you can prove this? When you make a decision do you really think that that's the start of a new chain of events? By saying this you are implying that there is absolutely nothing that has impact on your decision, because otherwise your decision is merely an unchangable part of the events-chain.
"and along the path of life we can still make several decisions based on our own thoughts."
And you think your thoughts are based on nothing? If I take you by word, you are actually saying that people are sad or happy for no reason, that the events in their life don't influence their thoughts and feelings and that therefore thoughts are undependant and will as a part of thoughts is free. But this is not true, just look at yourself. Everything you think and feel is a reaction to something that happened.

"Everything we do, in my opinion, is by choice...and directly affects our future. Basically, we are the ones that create the future."
"We CHOOSE to take the path that we do... If we have DECIDED to take a seperate path from the one that we are taking now, our life could have been totally different."
Capitalizing 'choose' doesn't make it more true, I'm afraid. Look at the words choice and decision and what you associate with it. I can't believe you think that your decisions can be not dependant on what you see, hear, know etc. If you haven't yet grasped it, let me illustrate it:

A small guy comes up and hits you in the face.
You are double as big as him and you have to decide what to do. Now there are certain aspects that would have an impact on your decision such as your
peacefulness, strength, bravery and more. All those are part of your character, physical appearence or similar and thus they have a certain state or value that would always be there, even if you travelled back in time. Now you have to decide... Obviously you won't do anything but estimate what will happen when you do this or that action in the next step. This is where choice steps in. Choice is your psychical power to decide between various, even contrary possibilities and choose what you think is best. If you think that free will exist, you will take your decision based on absolutely nothing and it is well possible that in the next step you scream "Wallaboo." instead of punching that little dickface back. So obviously you will choose what you think is best and there is only exactly one thing that you think is best and there can only be one. If the same situation happened again, things could be just a little different and your choice will be another one but that just proves that your decision is based on situation and thus is not free.

"Of course you could say that it's just part of the overall plan of life..but I just don't think it works that way."
Because you haven't thought about it properly and you probably believe in tooth fairies and Santa Claus just because it's so much fun.

For further information also refer to my above reply. GG.

 

[_Ace]

I believe in free will, but sometimes there is stuff that will happen regardless of what you do...
Free will creates infinite possibilities because... if I click the "post reply" button now, something may be changed in the future, and if I don't maybe other things will happen... who knows, this would give me some Gil for the RPG thing so then I can do other things and it would be completely different than not posting this... I know it sounds ****ed up but I don't know how to explain it in my limited English vocabulary

 

[cxoli]

God, I hate agreeing with Korittke.

Destiny. An interesting topic, but kind of a moot point. I look at it this way. There is kind of a half-destiny. We are sort of predetermined to do things based on our personalities. If something happens that changes our personalities, say the death of a loved one or the experience of war, we'd change the way we act in the future. So destiny is more of a short term thing, being tied to our whims of the time.

That's sort of a psychological view....I don't know if this is exactly correct since I just started taking the class, but apparently about 50% of your personality can be inherited traits. The rest is mainly changes that occur due to the effects other people have on you -- deaths of loved ones, consequences or rewards for certain actions, etc. Effort on your part to change a certain aspect of yourself (eg become less shy) can also contribute.

The point I'm trying to make here is that from a scientific point of view (I guess that's what you'd call it), free will does not exist because every action you make is based solely on your personality, which is shaped by the choices other people make based on their personalities, and on and on so that we are all just part of a long string of actions and reactions.

It seems to me like the only possible way for free will to exist is from a religious point of view. You'd have to believe in the human soul, which (like I think Korritke said) would have to be separate from your personality and not influenced by your experiences. However, even though I'm Christian, this seems kind of unlikely. Like I said before, it's hard to believe in God without believing in predestination, so even if you did believe in the human soul, in the end your actions have already been chosen by God. (This actually fits in with the psychological view since the personalities of everyone today would be due to the reactions and inherited traits caused by the actions of Adam and Eve, who God created along with their personalities.)

It doesn't change my life at all to think that free will may not exist. I still have a personality and am having fun, and I'm still going to live life regardless of exactly why I'm living it.

Funny, last time we had this debate I was arguing for free will, not against it.

 

[RoaCh of DisCord]

For the love of Gawd, determinism is not about things being 'planned out' or written down somewhere, being controlled by an unavoidable force. It is merely the fact that there is no free will, and that the world is a chain of events.

"The outcome of our future is our choice, and can be changed by what we decide to do at any time. Everything that we do in our life ends up crearting a chain of reactions, this is true,"
" but it starts out as a choice"
How do you think you can prove this? When you make a decision do you really think that that's the start of a new chain of events? By saying this you are implying that there is absolutely nothing that has impact on your decision, because otherwise your decision is merely an unchangable part of the events-chain.
"and along the path of life we can still make several decisions based on our own thoughts."
And you think your thoughts are based on nothing? If I take you by word, you are actually saying that people are sad or happy for no reason, that the events in their life don't influence their thoughts and feelings and that therefore thoughts are undependant and will as a part of thoughts is free. But this is not true, just look at yourself. Everything you think and feel is a reaction to something that happened.

"Everything we do, in my opinion, is by choice...and directly affects our future. Basically, we are the ones that create the future."
"We CHOOSE to take the path that we do... If we have DECIDED to take a seperate path from the one that we are taking now, our life could have been totally different."
Capitalizing 'choose' doesn't make it more true, I'm afraid. Look at the words choice and decision and what you associate with it. I can't believe you think that your decisions can be not dependant on what you see, hear, know etc. If you haven't yet grasped it, let me illustrate it:

A small guy comes up and hits you in the face.
You are double as big as him and you have to decide what to do. Now there are certain aspects that would have an impact on your decision such as your
peacefulness, strength, bravery and more. All those are part of your character, physical appearence or similar and thus they have a certain state or value that would always be there, even if you travelled back in time. Now you have to decide... Obviously you won't do anything but estimate what will happen when you do this or that action in the next step. This is where choice steps in. Choice is your psychical power to decide between various, even contrary possibilities and choose what you think is best. If you think that free will exist, you will take your decision based on absolutely nothing and it is well possible that in the next step you scream "Wallaboo." instead of punching that little dickface back. So obviously you will choose what you think is best and there is only exactly one thing that you think is best and there can only be one. If the same situation happened again, things could be just a little different and your choice will be another one but that just proves that your decision is based on situation and thus is not free.

"Of course you could say that it's just part of the overall plan of life..but I just don't think it works that way."
Because you haven't thought about it properly and you probably believe in tooth fairies and Santa Claus just because it's so much fun.

For further information also refer to my above reply. GG.

I see your point, but I still disagree. I was mainly refering to the first post...in which the person said that if time were to be rewound everything would happen again in the same way...which must mean that everything is planned out ahead of time. The future has not happened, therefore it doesn't exist...and it is definitely not already determined and can't be predicted (IMO).

 

[Sogeking]

wow i love how everyone here has a long post and im going to have a really short metaphorish thing


ok, does anyone remember the game of chance where you dropped a coin into a machine from a given opening in the top of the machine, and when you did this, the coin would hit pegs(oh, its situated as a verticle drop with pegs stuck into it) and bounce in a certain direction. Depending on the machine, there will be several spots at the bottom, some ending in failure, few ending in success and winning whatever prize was in store for you(usually a fee taco :-/)

well, what i want to say here is that destiny is much like that. you are the one that chooses where the coin will start at the top of someone else's machine. you didnt choose where the pegs are or where the succesful spot at the bottom is, but you do choose where you start. and once you commit with it, destiny pushes the your coin down and where it ends is result to where you started. You choose where you start, and destiny chooses where you end...i think...

Make any sense?

 

[Korittke]

if time were to be rewound everything would happen again in the same way...which must mean that everything is planned out ahead of time.

Nothing is planned out, but everything happens for a reason. Why don't you get it?

and it is definitely not already determined and can't be predicted (IMO).

IMO? Why do you disagree without having any valid arguments? It is theoretically possible to predict the future, but not practically because the world is too complex. Still you can look at certain parts of actions and always see them as a part of the big reaction-chain. Be it behaviour, physics, chemics or anything else.

I'll be nice though and supply you with an argument for your position :rolleyes
Scientists have found out that maybe it is possible for certain atoms to virtually move without this movement being induced by anything which means that they are moving or changing constitution for no reason, though they are part of the physical system.

 

[RoaCh of DisCord]

Why do you disagree without having any valid arguments?

Nothing is planned out, but everything happens for a reason. Why don't you get it?

I rest my case. :rolleyes. Let's not get too hypocritical, shal we?

Scientists have found out that maybe it is possible for certain atoms to virtually move without this movement being induced by anything which means that they are moving or changing constitution for no reason, though they are part of the physical system.

Oh okay! And that explains, what? Not much. We are talking about the human species here...not a single atom. The human mind is a VERY powerful tool, and it IS capable of freedom of thought. That's what seperates us from animals. The freedom to think leads to free will...it doesn't matter if things around us change or alter our course, or lead us to do certain things. We are still capable of thinking, and making decisions...despite what happens around us. Our decisions may be influenced by the actions and events around us, but they are not totally controlled by them. The human mind is capable of free thought...obviously.

 

[Korittke]

"Nothing is planned out, but everything happens for a reason. "
Planned out sounds like somebody has control over it. That's why I thought you needed to know.

"We are talking about the human species here...not a single atom."
The human body consists of atoms.

"Our decisions may be influenced by the actions and events around us, but they are not totally controlled by them."
How so? You're saying that decisions are partly influenced and partly based on nothing. If you're such an expert why don't you tell me the percentages?

Or better yet: Define free will. If that's too hard, criticise my definition:

Free will = The idea of making a decision influenced by nothing of the external world and only dependant on inner thoughts.
If you want this to work, thoughts must be induced by something else than the external world.
If a decision is based on nothing, why is it a decision?

 

[RoaCh of DisCord]

Or better yet: Define free will. If that's too hard, criticise my definition

Free Will: Freedom of self determination, expression, and actions. The ability to make free choices, voluntarily, unconstrained by outside forces, and based on free thoughts and feelings within the mind.

That is my definition.

The thought that we simply drive on cause and effect is ludicrous.