Fate?

[NightStalker]

Question: Do you believe in fate?

Max Payne said it best, "A funhouse is a linear sequence of scares. Take it or leave it is the only choice given. Kinda makes you wonder about free will. Have our choices been made for us because of who we are?"

Or can my mind not comprehend choice?

[Atomic Waffle]

There are so many things the mind cannot comprehend. Take for instance, the abscence of conciousness. It's mind-boggling.

I personally believe that all actions we take have far-reaching implications on the lives of others, no matter how small. I always wonder, when i'm riding the subway, what people are going to do when they get off. I guess we control our own lives to an extent, but there are so many other factors that influence our lives, it is impossible to pinpoint how something is going to happen. Nothing is ever completely sure.

[MaxTheLimit]

You do have the ability to choose in my opinion. But choice is an illusion of humans limited perception. If there was a perception of time it would be a dimension where we've already made all of our choices (simultaneously making every on of them at the same point). You do and have choice and you can change things (and probably have) but it's not predisposed, it's more something you've just done already. You decided it and in a different perception of time probably did already....Just because you don't perceive it yet doesn't mean you never had the choice to do so.

[Black Op]

A human has control over his or her destiny, there surely isn't any magical force controlling what we all are meant to do. However this control is obviously limited by various factors such as birth and et cetera. While we don't have unlimited choice, we're obviously not zombies and playthings for some all-powerful Fate Master(TM).

[intooblivion]

Yeah, we're all pawns for the g-man though... 0.0

[Kester]

Whilst I agree with Black Op, I'd like to point out that free choice could quite easily be an illusion, and every time you think well I had free choice to eat cereal instead of toast this morning, it was actually set out exactly what you eat. It's essentially a paradox.

Basically it is totally impossible to state whether fate or free choice really exists, however signs point to free choice being the reality. Otherwise the question begs why did it take this long for civilisation to progress to where it is and what was this all powerful being that controls our lives doing before humans existed?

[intooblivion]

Probably asking himself the meaning of being a god.

[zim]

Whilst I agree with Black Op, I'd like to point out that free choice could quite easily be an illusion, and every time you think well I had free choice to eat cereal instead of toast this morning, it was actually set out exactly what you eat. It's essentially a paradox.


Thats what put me into a loop of thinking about it for a full week one time until I gave up.

[Winged One]

I think we have free will. However, there are some things that ARE fated. We are all fated to die, for example.

[NightStalker]

Well, I think I agree Kester the most. Choice is a paradox. If no new factors enter the equation, you will make a certian choice. However, if you magically see the future somehow, (adding a new factor) you will make a different choice.

[Mercer]

I love how conflicted people become over the fate question. For many people they have to know or at least believe they are making a difference in the world, leaving an impact, or just that there is a purpose to our existance. But I have no problem accepting that we may just be all randomly created and no higher power or fate or cosmic string is leading us along.

When it comes to fate. I'd like to believe that free choice exists and that fate is just what we try to constuct around what events our minds try to connect together.

For example, if I meet a girl and we fall madly in love, people may say that we were "fated" to meet. And I think this helps some people, because they may believe that it is very rare to meet someone who you implictly get along with and understand, thus it helps them to believe that they themselves may be "fated" to meet someone.

On the opposite side of the coin though, I could be deluding myself into believing that I do indeed have free choice. Just as there maybe those who believe that they have no real free choice. In any case, satisfactory answers to the fate question are nigh immpossible to come upon.

[Jabode]

Each and everything we do is based off of experiences. Experiences are based off of other choices and events we have no control over. In the end, all that is left is the events.

[TheTaxidermist]

Well I believe that we have the freedom of choice and that we aren't destined to do anything. Even if you say "we are destined to die", we aren't really. Because it's how we die that matters, not if we are going to. Because really, there is no question to death.

[Jabode]

I mean it in the sense that we don't have free choice, thus what we do is entirely out of our hands.

[jambo]

While it is impossible to get a definitive answer on this question, IMO there is no such thing as fate. A persons future is dictated by three things; their choices, their environment affect on them and how other peoples choices affect them.

[Atomic Waffle]

Everything in this universe is decided by Poppin' Fresh.

[Sersoft.corp]

People are always trying to make something out of nothing, I mean I was watching transformers yesterday, and there was this guy looking at a giant metal scorpion and shouting: what is this??? and the other shouts back: I don't know!!, and I wanted to shout, It's a giant metal scorpion you idiot!!

While you know that you're the one making the free choice, you still question it, what if I'm not, what if Poppin' Fresh decides??

dammit guys, there's no such thing as fate, It's your choice to accept it or not accept it(pun intended)

[CUatTHEFINISH]

Everything in this universe is decided by Poppin' Fresh.

Please keep the discussions mature Waffle. Thanks. :happy:

[MaxTheLimit]

People are always trying to make something out of nothing, I mean I was watching transformers yesterday, and there was this guy looking at a giant metal scorpion and shouting: what is this??? and the other shouts back: I don't know!!, and I wanted to shout, It's a giant metal scorpion you idiot!!

While you know that you're the one making the free choice, you still question it, what if I'm not, what if Poppin' Fresh decides??

dammit guys, there's no such thing as fate, It's your choice to accept it or not accept it(pun intended)

It's because of humans fear of dieing that they tie meaning on to anything they can I'm told. If everything has a meaning people think they have a purpose and it makes them feel special. I like to think there is no purpose and My life isn't determined by anything other than what my separate self from everything else in the world decides. Thus, I like to think free choice exists. The world is effected b our choices which circles around to influence the choices we make, and so on. Chaos theory basically.

[Atomic Waffle]

There can be no meaning to life, and still be a life after death. Quite bluntly, humans are dumb. That's my theory. We think we know so much about the universe, and yet when I walk outside at night, I hear cosmic laughter resounding through the stars. (Metaphorically, of course)

[7ty714]

Each and everything we do is based off of experiences. Experiences are based off of other choices and events we have no control over. In the end, all that is left is the events.

I wholee-heartedly agree, exactly my thoughts on the matter. so in the end, there is a "fate" like I tried to explain in another thread about addiction. We do have choices, but we always make the choices we feel like making, and what we feel like is based off, what you said, experiences which are based off other choices and events we have no control over.

[Mad Scientist]

Fate as the predetermination of every event in the universe, strikes me as scientifically impossible. Considering the implications of of quantum mechanics, particularly the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it appears impossible that we could know the outcome of every interaction. However, more than this, it demonstrates that there are some things that the universe itself cannot "know" about sub atomic interactions. As these interactions ultimately govern everything around us, i would have to conclude that the universe is inherently non-deterministic, and random in nature.

However, all this does is prove that there is no "fate" in the driving seat. It doesn't say anything about if we are or not...

[MaxTheLimit]

What of th idea that time isn't linear? If it was more dynamic in a high dimension would that alter anyones thoughts on fate?

[Mad Scientist]

Not really i have to say. Even if time is globally non-linear, it is most assuredly locally linear. As this is the scale we make the choices of our day to day lives on, i fail to see how different temporal topology would actually change matters.

[Atomic Waffle]

String Theory? Time is non-linear, and our perception is but one point in time, and each choice we make or do not make creates another string of time that our perception passes through. Eh?

[Mad Scientist]

Errr... not really.

The whole temporal branching and "trousers of time" theories are a little to complex to explain in the five minutes i have before i need to go out. Suffice to say that the truth is FAR more complex (yet elegant, in a manner of speaking) than any science fiction book or story makes it out to be.

[7ty714]

Interesting read as always Mad Sci :) But I mean, how could we make a difference, we're just matter like everything else. We do what we prefer and those preferances are results of other events... So basically we're slaves under our own minds, are we not? Isn't the universe like a big domino effect in itself? I'd like to hear a proffesional like yours opinion on that :)

[Mad Scientist]

Well i'm pleased that my opinion is mattered, but its a difficult question to answer. The most i can do is explain why the universe is NOT like a giant clockwork contrivance, and why quantum mechanics demonstrates that fate, prediction, and predetermination, aren't all they are cracked up to be. Its been a long time since i did one of these...

[dusts off mortar board]

MAD SCIENTIST SCIENCE LESSON!

First we need to look at the old school of physics, namely Newtonian and Einsteinian physics. These are sometimes known as "billiard ball" physics (why billiards and not snooker or pool i will never know). The reason why is that they are a little bit like a game of billiards, in that if you EXACTLY know the position of the ball, and EXACTLY know how fast it is moving, and in what direction, you can do some fairly simple vector calculations, and you will know precisely where the ball is in 5 seconds time. Its like astronomy, we know what the orbits of the planets are, so we can work out where they will all be in 10 minutes, ten years, or even ten millennia should we wish. However, this only works if we know all those starting measurements, those initial conditions.

And however we measure those conditions, it should be noted that it is more difficult to measure smaller things than larger things. If i have a 30cm ruler, that can measure to the nearest millimetre, then a 25 centimetre long stick could be as short as 24.95 centimetres, or as long as 25.05 centimetres. That is a 0.4% margin of error. If i measure my eraser, and find it to be 0.9cm thick, then that could be as little as 0.85, or as big as 0.95. That s a 11.11% margin of error. Smaller measurements mean more error.

Now we get to the quantum. Due to a great deal of evidence, it is well known now that the little bits of matter that make up the universe can be thought of as particles. They have a definite mass, direction, momentum and velocity, and can be thought of as microscopic marbles flying around each other through space. However, they can also be thought of as waves, as they can diffract, reflect, bend round corners, and have a measurable frequency. This is known as wave-particle duality, in that they behave both as particles, and waves depending on what you are trying to measure.

Now, for various reasons, the wavelength of a particle gets smaller as the speed of the particle gets bigger. As the wavelength is what we need to know where the particle is (think of waves on by the beach-you need to know how big they are before you can distinguish the start of one wave from the end of the next), you may be able to see the problem.

If we want to know how fast the particle is, we want the particle to have a big speed, as this means its velocity is a large number, making it easy and accurate to measure. However, this means we have a tiny wavelength, which is extremely difficult to measure. If we make the particle travel slowly, then although the wavelength is large and easy to measure, the speed has a small number, and inaccurate to measure. No matter what you do, you cannot win.

This is not simply a case of building more sensitive equipment. You get to a point where even perfect measurements cannot tell you both the speed and location of a wave/particle. The universe ITSELF doesn't really "know" where the particle is. All their is is a vague probability cloud (the square of the particle's Schrödinger wave function if you want to get technical) that gives a best guess of what the particle is doing.

In other words, we can never know all those initial conditions, because they are effectively unknowable at the quantum level. Hence, as those initial conditions do not really exist, any idea of the universe running predetermined like clockwork doesn't work.

[Atomic Waffle]

My brains...

[Kester]

In addition to Mad Sci's physics lesson, at least this is what I believe to br true from the books I've read (he may prove me wrong).

You can measure a particle's position, or speed, not both. However, once you observe the speed or position, you actually effect the particle, changing it's course/speed/position. Thus rendering your experiment to work out what it'll do next almost totally pointless.

However, whilst this almost totally disproves fate (if the universe has no idea what is going on at it's basic level, how can it plan the future), it doesn't go as far to disprove that all our human actions are based on our interactions with each other or another earlier event, but that, however, isn't fate.

For anyone wanting to know a little more about the philosophical side of this arguement, there is a wealth of information about Determinism, and it's related ideas, on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

More specifically, it's offshoot page on Compatibilism, which is basically where this thread is going to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism#Compatibilism

[jackattack502]

Life is what i make of it. Period.

[Mad Scientist]

That's a wee bit simplistic. I doubt there is much anyone could "make" out of being struck by lightning.

[BahamutBBob]

I believe that each and every one of us is destined to do certain things in our lives. How we end up doing them is up to us, but we will still do those things set apart for us.

[MaxTheLimit]

So you are the same thinking of MadSci and thing Hugh Everett (http://everythingforever.com/everett.htm) is wrong?
I would like an explanation of the effects of single particle interference then...

[BahamutBBob]

I'm not going to be scientific about it. I didn't read all of the posts, so I can't tell you if my opinion is close to Mad Sci's or not. I shouldn't need to elaborate when it's pretty clear what I said in my previous post.

[MaxTheLimit]

Then back it up in the form of a debate based on my request to refute the theories of Everett which contradict yours....

c'mon it will be fun.

[Mad Scientist]

Remember folks, this isn't just a place to post your opinion. its a place to express your opinion and TO CRUSH ALL CONTRARY OPINIONS UNDER WAVE AFTER WAVE OF ENDLESS BURNING RHETORIC, EVIDENCE AND POLITELY WORDED SNIPING INSULTS.

[MaxTheLimit]

Well it is the debate hall.

[BahamutBBob]

Remember folks, this isn't just a place to post your opinion. its a place to express your opinion and TO CRUSH ALL CONTRARY OPINIONS UNDER WAVE AFTER WAVE OF ENDLESS BURNING RHETORIC, EVIDENCE AND POLITELY WORDED SNIPING INSULTS.
Which is why I rarely post here. People aren't nice in this folder :(

And Max, I wouldn't find it fun, I would find it frustrating. I said my opinion and that's all I'm gonna say, I'm done with this thread.