this should not be a first post, well forget it is, but i have a stupid question, and i don't care, well i would like you to reply, but you really don't have to, but i'll see if those who do are trustful on here anyways. anyways...

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? And not just the big things, but the little things too.
Like you were suppose to be at one place at one specific time because someone else was suppose to be there?

OR!

Do you think that what happens, just happens, and then you just die, like life suks, and then you just fall over in a big hole or get burned to little ashes, aka you die?

#2

but why does it have to mean that life sucks? I don't believe that things happen for any particular reason... but I've never felt in any way that it makes life any less important or any less enjoyable.

Life is great... then you die.

Life is too short to be negative...

Well, there's really no getting around the dying part. I don't believe in fate, whether you call it God or astrology or just plain ol' karma. I belive we make our own fates, and that we only have one shot at it.

What they said.

I believe in a small world and lots of coincidence.

Interestingly enough, I believe in both free will and predestination.

Underscore wrote:

Interestingly enough, I believe in both free will and predestination.

How so?

I don't really know which of those i believe more, but one things for sure, It doesn't change my attitude either way. As a person, i am more free-spirited and random but not in a "HAY GUYS IM RANDOM" way .

Bottom line, some things happen for reasons, i guess. But very few things do. i don't think any day to day coincidences are fate. but some things might be, like finding one's true calling may be. Whatever.

A quote that I heard from the movie Charlie Wilson's War:

"There once was a boy in a village, who on his 13th birthday recieved a horse. Everyone in the village said 'Oh how wonderful for the boy!' but the wise elder said 'Well, we'll see...

A few years later, the boy was riding his horse when the horse got spooked and bucked him off, breaking his leg. Everyone in the village said 'Oh how awful!' but the wise elder said 'Well, we'll see...

Soon, war fell upon the country, and all the young men were sent off to battle, except the boy with the broken leg, and everyone in the village said 'Oh, how fortunate!' and the wise old elder said 'Well, we'll see..."

And so on...

Point being, everything happens for a reason for a reason for a reason. Or, rather, everything is effected by everything. Only in hindsight can you see how everything tied together, for better or for worse.

As for life being predestined. There is no scientific evidence that proves predestiny exists, nor is there a way to measure it. But that doesnt mean that it does or doesnt exist. It just means we cant prove it.

Dogs cant percieve/measure color, but does that mean that green doesnt exist? Or blue?

Think about it...

In order for predestiny to exist we have to assume that the Action/Reaction rule is infallible. To the point that every electrical impulse in our own brains is caused, inevitably, due to the actions around it. Kinda a much higher application of "pushing something makes it move."

The problem I have with this is that it removes any question of free will, and just makes our own actions a complex series of actions causing a complex series of reactions based on the other predetermined actions around us.

So yeah, I don't believe in predestiny.

I've been listening to Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time, and one thing I found interesting is when he talks about the search for a complete unified theory (essentially a complete theory through which we can calculate the workings of the entire universe [rather than the collection of 'smaller', seperate theories we currently know, such as the theory of relativity]).

Assuming we are rational beings free to observe as we want and draw logical deductions from what we see, it makes sense that we will progress closer to understanding the laws of the universe. However his suggestion is that if such a theory exists, then surely the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it.

Of course, it could equally dictate that we do not reach any conclusion at all, or the wrong one, but he then talks about Darwin, and how certain genetic paths such as curiosity and the ability to deduce have become dominant traits in the human being. Knowing the complete unified theory might not help our survival as a species, but the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us do seem to be leading us towards its discovery.

Fascinating stuff anyway. Perhaps we are all governed by greater forces that aren't religious, or fate, but the workings of the universe in all its infinity. We humans always think about things on a fairly small scale (ie relating to *us* as a species, as I guess that's how our species has had to think, back to when we still had to compete against the world to survive. Now that we are the dominant species, instead of merely thinking about us being the solely important thing in the universe, perhaps we need to focus on the fact that we're one small planet in a universe so big we cannot even concieve it, and there may well be forces at work that (say it ain't so!!!) don't focus on us as a species at all, that we're just a tiny, insignificant part of.

I see a difference between predestination in the "you were always going to do that" sense and "everything happens for a reason." In the first case, there doesn't have to be any sort of intent or intelligence behind the actions--they're results of biological, chemical, and physical processes that can be traced all the way back to the random position of quarks during the Big Bang. You can disbelieve in both God and free will (although yikes, who would want to?)

RoberII wrote:

Underscore wrote: Interestingly enough, I believe in both free will and predestination. How so?

In short: You can chose to do anything you want. At the same time, everything you do, you were predestined to do.

I do not believe in predestined happenings, but I've been thinking quite a bit about it anyway.

As I see it, if something is predestined, you do not have a choice. Even if you do something random and say "This wasn't predicted," it was. However, predestined don't just apply to your actions, but to everything (thoughts, being, environment). Basically, you're shaped so that you will act in certain ways, though it's possible to act against those inclinations, that is not free will, but rather the inbuilt action of realizing a predicted pattern and an attempt to break it.

Of course, predestined can be set as something broader, i.e. so and so will happen, but the way to the goal is left to free will. That way, combining the two might work. However, in this case it would not be possible to not get the fated result. However, what a human perceive as the predestined goal is not unnecessarily the actual goal. No one said fate and human perception have anything to do with each other.

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I see a difference between predestination in the "you were always going to do that" sense and "everything happens for a reason." In the first case, there doesn't have to be any sort of intent or intelligence behind the actions--they're results of biological, chemical, and physical processes

But there you still have a reason, just that the reason isn't a 'conscious' force.

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You can disbelieve in both God and free will (although yikes, who would want to?)

Well, what we would like and reality are often very different In fact, you've put your finger on the reason religion/belief in God exists the first place; people don't like the idea that there isn't a being more powerful than they are looking after them, because at the end of the day people don't like feeling ignorant or helpless. They want to feel that they belong, that they have an important place in the grand scheme of things because for centuries we believed we were the centre of the galaxy. We know now that this is far from the truth, but the habits of religion are still deeply ingrained in our cultures.

And at the end of the day, does it matter? For the time being at least, it does not - we live our lives either under the impression of free will, or with free will, then we die. It doesn't matter which it is really. If/when the human race does start to figure out the underlying structure of existence then I suppose things will change along with our understanding.

Underscore wrote:

Interestingly enough, I believe in both free will and predestination. In short: You can chose to do anything you want. At the same time, everything you do, you were predestined to do.

So you either mean that: the outcome of every single possible variable in existence (down to a quantum level) is already pre-determined but once the action occurs all the rejected possibilities split off into their own alternate realities (where that particular choice was the one made).

Or you need to explain to us a bit better

Quote:

Quote: I see a difference between predestination in the "you were always going to do that" sense and "everything happens for a reason." In the first case, there doesn't have to be any sort of intent or intelligence behind the actions--they're results of biological, chemical, and physical processes But there you still have a reason, just that the reason isn't a 'conscious' force.

It's semantics, really. "Reason" can refer to cause and effect, in which case everything happens for many reasons as there are many events, both previous and concurrent, that affect it. Or you can use "for a reason" to mean "as part of a plan," which then allows you to say things like "this was *meant* to happen" (which you can't say otherwise, because if the reason for something isn't conscious, nobody is around to mean it).

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Well, what we would like and reality are often very different

Very true. But as you said, does it matter? I wholeheartedly approve of seeking truth and knowledge, but when the questions get this abstract, it doesn't much matter whether you believe that you're following God's plan or that you have some (limited) control over your life and are making the best of whatever random opportunities are thrown your way. You do what works, and praise either God or fortune (and your presence of mind in either case).

Mister_Bubbles wrote:

Underscore wrote: Interestingly enough, I believe in both free will and predestination. In short: You can chose to do anything you want. At the same time, everything you do, you were predestined to do. So you either mean that: the outcome of every single possible variable in existence (down to a quantum level) is already pre-determined but once the action occurs all the rejected possibilities split off into their own alternate realities (where that particular choice was the one made). Or you need to explain to us a bit better

Whaaaat? I'm talking about conscious decisions, not quantum variables.

Example: You come to a fork in the road. You have the choice to go either left or right (it doesn't matter, you'll get where you need to be either way). Now there may be outside influences on you (passengers, GPS navigation, road signs) that may influence you in your decision. However, when it comes down to it, you make the decision to go either left or right of your own free will.
Let's say you chose to go right. You made that choice, but it was also predestined that you would make that choice.

I still don't get what kind of predestination you're referring to in your example.

"It was predestined that you would make that choice."

Turning right is therefore not a choice, you are merely fulfilling a predetermined action.

Yeah - that implies that either you were never ever going to choose left, or that you had a choice and it wasn't predestined. You can't really have it both ways. It'd just be the *illusion* of choice for the person driving.

With the whole cause/effect theory, this means that if we could know the location and velocity of every single subatomic particle at any one time then we could (in theory) tell the future, because everything that happens - every collision, every movement - would be predictable.

Which, if you think about it, could kinda make sense. You see something happen, and due to the way you've been conditioned while growing up, right from birth, you react a certain way. You form certain thoughts about that event, and it shapes your future reactions and interactions with people and things.

Hm..

I still don't like it.

Quote:

With the whole cause/effect theory, this means that if we could know the location and velocity of every single subatomic particle at any one time then we could (in theory) tell the future, because everything that happens - every collision, every movement - would be predictable.

Meaning that we can't predict the future, even in theory. Interesting. I never thought of it like that.

Okay, you know what? Forget it. There's no such thing as true free will. Happy now?

Yes, I believe we have free will. But, I believe that regardless of our free will, we still have an ultimate destiny that we can't escape. We can make lots of small choices along the way that change some things, but in the end, in the big picture, we can't escape the ultimate part we have to play.

Also, Mister Bubbles. The Unified Theory you speak of, and that you've been listening to Mr. King speak of... Well, unfortunately, I'm afraid he didn't grasp it to well. The unified theory is the ultimate theory of physics and how gravity, time, and relativity work on a scale from the atomic level to the level of planets. Thus having little to do with controlling "fate" except on whether a planet will collide with another, or be sucked into a star. Or proving/disproving string theory and the existance of alternate universes thus determining whether or not teleportation is possible through dimensional holes which may or may not be possibly within our ability to create by using freak gravitational bursts in the form of momentary black holes.

I do so love physics.

Go God!

Also, most scientists will deny that the human traits of curiosity and reasoning have been selectively bred to be more powerful. In fact, if you look at history, human invention has actually been slowing rather than accelerating.

Well, we're still the only species on the planet to master fire and the electric toothbrush, so I'd say yes, we have been naturally selected for brains. Whether we'll still have those brains millennia into the future, once we've fully adapted to an existence free of environmental pressures, of course remains to be seen.

Silvanus wrote:

Also, most scientists will deny that the human traits of curiosity and reasoning have been selectively bred to be more powerful. In fact, if you look at history, human invention has actually been slowing rather than accelerating.

What? What are you talking about? It's a well-known fact that paradigm shifts tend to follow an exponential curve.

And the Grand Unified Theory is simply an attempt to reconciliate Quantum Physics and Einstein's theory of general relativity, since the two are mutually exclusive.

Also, the idea that we can predict every single atom, and thus tell the future, is an impossibility since it is impossible to know both the momentum and position of a particle, even to God. (of course you can argue that God can do anything, but in that case God can also do things like make 1 + 1 = 5 etc)

Also, some things are left completely to chance in quantum mechanics, thus giving us a gateway to free will.

On the other hand, people act in a predictable matter on a pretty regular basis.

At any rate, it doesn't matter whether we have free will. I do have to say that I hate the idea of 'fate' especially one determined by a God, since that would pretty much make God a kid with a spy glass and an ant farm.

RoberII wrote:

What? What are you talking about? It's a well-known fact that paradigm shifts tend to follow an exponential curve.

But human invention on a grand scale has slowed rather than sped up. Breakthroughs in invention have become smaller and smaller as time progressed not larger. So even if curiosity and reasoning were being selectively bred, which isn't possible in the current human breeding circumstance, it wouldn't be showing much affect on us...

RoberII wrote:

And the Grand Unified Theory is simply an attempt to reconciliate Quantum Physics and Einstein's theory of general relativity, since the two are mutually exclusive.

Yep, that's what I was trying to get across in a way that gave descriptions rather than names for Quantam Physics and the theory of relativity.

RoberII wrote:

Also, the idea that we can predict every single atom, and thus tell the future, is an impossibility since it is impossible to know both the momentum and position of a particle, even to God. (of course you can argue that God can do anything, but in that case God can also do things like make 1 + 1 = 5 etc) Also, some things are left completely to chance in quantum mechanics, thus giving us a gateway to free will. On the other hand, people act in a predictable matter on a pretty regular basis. At any rate, it doesn't matter whether we have free will. I do have to say that I hate the idea of 'fate' especially one determined by a God, since that would pretty much make God a kid with a spy glass and an ant farm.

Have you ever played the game "The Sims"? For those who have, have you ever thought to yourself, "What if I'm a sim?" It's a funny thought.

What human inventions on a 'grand scale' ? The car, the TV, the computer, electricity, the internet, aeroplanes, spaceflight, the radio, nuclear machines of all kinds - all happened within the last 100 years or so.

But was any of that so much of a big invention or just a new thing made out of old inventions?

The car is not possible without first having invented the wheel, ways to process metal, the invention of gears, and all these kinds of things that had already been around for years, it was just a single invention that put together hundreds of others that predated it by potentially, thousands of years. There was hardly any "New work" done.

Silvanus wrote:

But was any of that so much of a big invention or just a new thing made out of old inventions? The car is not possible without first having invented the wheel, ways to process metal, the invention of gears, and all these kinds of things that had already been around for years, it was just a single invention that put together hundreds of others that predated it by potentially, thousands of years. There was hardly any "New work" done.

That is one of the most preposterous and hilarious viewpoints I have ever heard. By your definition, it is virtually impossible to invent anything at all. Anything with wheels, or gears, or electricity? Out the window

Putting together the 'old' things, that's invention, just as much as using new scientific discoveries to make practical gadgets is invention.