Reading Philosophy

I've had this philosophy on life and our natural universe that may or may not be common... depending on the maturity, age, etc... of the reader. But this is a philosophy I have shared to several people, varying in all attributes... beliefs, religions, intelligence... but I wanted to know the thoughts of others.

I think that several questions about fate, religion, and coincidence can be summed up in this idea. Life is an uncontrollable chain reaction. From the minute that you are born to the minute that you are dead, you have no choices. Your life is going to turn out the way that it will, and you can't change it.

Very bold to say, because so many people believe in choice. I think that if you phrase it's definition... sure there's choice. But isn't all of your choices predetermined anyway?

For example. If you flip a coin, it can be heads or tails. No argument there. But if you could calculate the air density, the exact spin of the coin, the exact rate of gravity, and all things considered... couldn't you predict exactly the outcome? Yes. You could, but that kind of an experiment would be impossible to conduct. To exact the variables would require an intelligence of incomprehensible magnitude.

Like the coin... aren't all of your choices based on past experience, genetics, the exact layout of atomic structure, etc... so infinitely delicate that it would be practically impossible to predict... but set and predictable nonetheless.

Does this not make sense? ...I can't explain myself well, and this is not to prove anything. But I am thoroughly convinced that I'm on to something here.

Discipline makes you happy.

"We have choice, but how we decide is predetermined by what we've experienced so far. Our free will couldn't be any different than it is because it is based upon experiences over which we have no influence."

If that's (more or less) what you want to say, I agree. :-)

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

I mostly agree with you on this one CTPhoenix. There are two things for me to point out:

a) People will let the idea that things can only turn out one way affect how they live their lives.

b) they shouldn't.

aren't all of your choices based on past experience, genetics, the exact layout of atomic structure, etc... so infinitely delicate that it would be practically impossible to predict... but set and predictable nonetheless.

Set, yes. Predictable, perhaps, on some far removed level. But can you make use of that prediction? not in any great way.

The predictability only really works in hindsight, because the very act of telling people what is going to happen would change what is going to happen. You can't change anything by predicting the future, because you were going to predict the future anyway and change it, so there really is no change.

You see, I think the main danger of your statement is that people would fail to make the distinction between 'changing the future' and 'choosing the future'. Maybe the future is preset, but it doesn't matter, because the role you take in it is up to you. You can choose the future, and the life you live, and affect the lives of those around you, even you were fated to make those choices. So it's not like people can sit on their hands saying "no matter what I do, it won't change fate", because the only time you can know what it is you were fated to do is after you've done it.

Hmm... I guess what I'm saying is, the concept of 'change' is redundant, but 'choice' is not. Maybe I could phrase it better, but anyway, your thoughts on this?

(you see, you will either reply, or not. you can choose whether or not to reply, but you can't change the fact the one of those two things is 100 percent certainly going to happen.)

"History is more or less bunk." - Henry Ford

This post was edited by Bunk on Aug 08, 2004.

Ahh..... you see, a reply of this precision is why I stay at this site. The main fallacy of my argument is that it's detail may or may not be enough to get my point across. If it's too long, you'll lose the reader.

On choice: I chose to reply to Bunk's post. I based my desicion on interest, free time, boredom, etc... and the circumstance I was in, including all mental precurses and physical surroundings, was inevitable. There was a 100% chance of my options and my circumstance. Well, then. Isn't every choice based on your circumstance?

Now that's it's over, there is a 100% chance that it happened. Therefore, isn't it possible for an infinitely intelligent, 3rd person viewer to sit back and watch me inevitably make that choice? I had to.

Now let's say that since he knew the outcome of my inevitable choice was, say, my death... and he told me that. Then I wouldn't have sent a reply. But... isn't that infinitely intelligent being now a part of circumstance? Couldn't there be another infinitely intelligent stander-by watching him make that incontrovertible choice, causing me to make an incontroverible choice?

This could go on forever. And ultimately... there is such a little chance of every being able to predict every delicacy of our circumstance that this argument could never effect our real lives. But it does bring to light a few points on "fate." This philosophy doesn't mean, as said by Bunk, that you should sit and pout and say "nothing can be done." Life is the same. But inevitable.

Discipline makes you happy.

And ultimately... there is such a little chance of every being able to predict every delicacy of our circumstance that this argument could never effect our real lives.

No... but as a theoretical possibility, it's quite interesting. :)

If someone could create a computer which was somehow capable of calculating every single variable in the universe, theoretically they could very easily manipulate the future in whichever way they wished. But the computer would also be able to determine whether or not the people who recieved the information would act on it... and if they did, that would be included in the predictions... even though the actions required of the computer (relaying the information) to make those predictions come true hadn't happened yet...

Yeah, it gets very paradoxial (if that's a word :p).

It is sort of like the idea behind Asimnov's Foundation trilogy. Except the Foundationists in those books didn't make their predictions based on that level of detail, the predicted the general direction of society as a whole, without accounting for the induvidual occurances... which was what ended up causing the most trouble.

"History is more or less bunk." - Henry Ford

If someone could create a computer which was somehow capable of calculating every single variable in the universe, theoretically they could very easily manipulate the future in whichever way they wished.

There is a wonderful short story contemplating this very possiblity, Sweet Surrender. It begins with the most memorable first sentence ever conceived:

At the center of the universe is a horribly wounded angel.

Now go read it already!

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

Oops, I forgot about this. Yes, I did read it, and... wow. It was really excellent. Thanks for the reference! :p

"History is more or less bunk." - Henry Ford

But if the coin knew you knew where it was going to land, it would land somewhere else.

"Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think."

Yeah, I've pondered this subject myself, where the universe is simply a nicely knit web of cause and effect and traced back to the "beginning", the Big Bang. But in my theory, the Big Bang is merely part of the great cycle the universe goes through.

{ Big Bang-->--Expansion--->--Apex--->--Contraction--->--Redo )

So if the universe is continously expanding and contracting it would be plausable that a pattern could easily be formulated from the repeated effects.

As for choice? Choice is simply an allusion (No Matrix quote intended)and we all are blinded by. You already know what the decision is, you've already "weighed" the consequences even before you were asked the question. How did you weigh the consequences? well, they were compared by the events and effects in you past.

So what good does it to know all this? well, as it would seem, history repeats itself, the same pattern is copied all through out time. If someone could somehow find a way to Break this pattern or "CODE" if you will, they'd be able to predict anything they want simply be applying the variables from the past. Essentially, thats what you are doing when you make a decision, there's no choice, its just your "computer" (brain) calculating the answer with the variables it has received.

"Bible Code" - some scholars had found that if you take the BIBLE as it was in its original Hebrew text and put all the lines up exactly like a crossword puzzle, and run a filter, you would begin to see words corresponding to events in history grouped together. now i dont know if that is real, of if its just an amazing coincident. but the idea is sound. if what the pen holders wrote was exactly as GOD wanted, then the BIBLE is not just some book of morals and analogies, but a CODEBOOK for the history of MANKIND.

anyway, fate is unavoidable thing. like it was fate for me to write this reply, or it was fate for YOU to read it, simply because of the events of the past.

Easy was to think of it....It's a giant equation.

To each his own...

Blue, you've simply restated what I have tried to write... perhaps in simpler text. Thank you for the analogies and insight.

As for the Bible... interesting idea. The only thing that I doubt is finding a perfect word-for-word translation into Hebrew. Does such an untainted copy exist?

I have a post that states my religion's take on the beginning and end of the universe. It is worth reading, and is in "God, Science, and Morals." Very worthwile thread. But however you want to interpret these mysteries is completely tolerable to me. I am very open to postulation. But either way... however this big ball started rolling, it truly was the beginning of a tantric chain of events that you expressed so well.

Now, for getting that nearly unattainable knowledge of prediction... to understand one part of the "CODE" is to understand all of it. But you must understand the precision implied. No machine yet concievable could take into account every variable we have labeled. But if you succeed at true comprehension of one part of the equation... the rest is inevitably predictable. A transcending of time. If time could be predicted, then all the knowledge we could hope to gain in any future would be attainable NOW, and thus we could do amazing things, ex. Prevent another Big Bang from utter destruction of our progress... To finding God. Perhaps these are gallant and rash thoughts... but if everything was predictable, what couldn't we build? What couldn't we accomplish?

A worse thought is... If we truly understood our demeanor... would we accept our form of humanity? Would we seek a future? Or would we program our minds for complacency and complete bliss? Or would we accept the ultimate bliss... Utter extinction of life? Irrational at first glance... But if life was predictable... would we choose to live it?

Discipline makes you happy.