Poll: Do you believe in any sort of fate?

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Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
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Calibanbutcher said:
Yopaz said:
Calibanbutcher said:
I don't believe in anything supernatural, so why should I believe in predetermination?
We are pretty much free to shape our own lives in the boundaries set to us by our culture and the laws of physics.
Well, there are things that are predetermined, but it doesn't mean fate is a thing. Our little life giving star known as the sun will have a lifetime of 9 billion years if I remember correctly, correct me if I'm wrong. It is assumed to be around half that age. Thus we are determined to die or escape in 4.5 billion years.

I don't believe in any kind of fate, but there are constants we can't change and our opportunity to change things around us depends a lot on where we live. If I were born in North Korea in a poor family I don't have much of a choice of what happens to my life. I live in a country where I do have options though and I have used my free will to change things. I believed I simply didn't understand maths and that I never would. Then when I buckled down I became quite good at it and even started to enjoy it a little. Some things such as the future of the sun is determined, but fate is several kinds of bullshit with sprinkles on top.
Edit: I'm stupid, fixing my mistake about the sun's age.

Which is why I included "laws of physics", since we can'T really change that stuff. We can'T cool the sun, we can't do much to slow down earth etc.

Just as an FYI:
You're off by a factor of 1000. The sun is app. 4.57 billion years old and we still got a few billion years to go.
Oh for fucks sake how stupid do I look from a scale on 1 to 10 now? I have to apologize for missing that you mentioned the laws of physics. Also how the fuck did I end up with 4.5 million years? Sorry, my brain must be seriously broken. Now I'll just have to edit my posts.
 

Calibanbutcher

Elite Member
Nov 29, 2009
1,702
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Yopaz said:
Calibanbutcher said:
Yopaz said:
Calibanbutcher said:
I don't believe in anything supernatural, so why should I believe in predetermination?
We are pretty much free to shape our own lives in the boundaries set to us by our culture and the laws of physics.
Well, there are things that are predetermined, but it doesn't mean fate is a thing. Our little life giving star known as the sun will have a lifetime of 9 billion years if I remember correctly, correct me if I'm wrong. It is assumed to be around half that age. Thus we are determined to die or escape in 4.5 billion years.

I don't believe in any kind of fate, but there are constants we can't change and our opportunity to change things around us depends a lot on where we live. If I were born in North Korea in a poor family I don't have much of a choice of what happens to my life. I live in a country where I do have options though and I have used my free will to change things. I believed I simply didn't understand maths and that I never would. Then when I buckled down I became quite good at it and even started to enjoy it a little. Some things such as the future of the sun is determined, but fate is several kinds of bullshit with sprinkles on top.
Edit: I'm stupid, fixing my mistake about the sun's age.

Which is why I included "laws of physics", since we can'T really change that stuff. We can'T cool the sun, we can't do much to slow down earth etc.

Just as an FYI:
You're off by a factor of 1000. The sun is app. 4.57 billion years old and we still got a few billion years to go.
Oh for fucks sake how stupid do I look from a scale on 1 to 10 now? I have to apologize for missing that you mentioned the laws of physics. Also how the fuck did I end up with 4.5 million years? Sorry, my brain must be seriously broken. Now I'll just have to edit my posts.
No worries, nothing was lost, no-one got hurt and all's good, everyone makes mistakes sometimes and if anyone ask claim it was a typo...
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
6,092
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Calibanbutcher said:
Yopaz said:
Calibanbutcher said:
Yopaz said:
Calibanbutcher said:
I don't believe in anything supernatural, so why should I believe in predetermination?
We are pretty much free to shape our own lives in the boundaries set to us by our culture and the laws of physics.
Well, there are things that are predetermined, but it doesn't mean fate is a thing. Our little life giving star known as the sun will have a lifetime of 9 billion years if I remember correctly, correct me if I'm wrong. It is assumed to be around half that age. Thus we are determined to die or escape in 4.5 billion years.

I don't believe in any kind of fate, but there are constants we can't change and our opportunity to change things around us depends a lot on where we live. If I were born in North Korea in a poor family I don't have much of a choice of what happens to my life. I live in a country where I do have options though and I have used my free will to change things. I believed I simply didn't understand maths and that I never would. Then when I buckled down I became quite good at it and even started to enjoy it a little. Some things such as the future of the sun is determined, but fate is several kinds of bullshit with sprinkles on top.
Edit: I'm stupid, fixing my mistake about the sun's age.

Which is why I included "laws of physics", since we can'T really change that stuff. We can'T cool the sun, we can't do much to slow down earth etc.

Just as an FYI:
You're off by a factor of 1000. The sun is app. 4.57 billion years old and we still got a few billion years to go.
Oh for fucks sake how stupid do I look from a scale on 1 to 10 now? I have to apologize for missing that you mentioned the laws of physics. Also how the fuck did I end up with 4.5 million years? Sorry, my brain must be seriously broken. Now I'll just have to edit my posts.
No worries, nothing was lost, no-one got hurt and all's good, everyone makes mistakes sometimes and if anyone ask claim it was a typo...
Yeah, the b is quite close to the m. I was going for that all along. Thanks for helping me with the cover-up.
 

plugav

New member
Mar 2, 2011
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On the human scale, there's no real difference between "fate" and free will. You may believe that your actions are predetermined (they probably are), but you still have to deal with their consequences. You can't just sit around and wait for the universe to feed you - you have to go make a sandwich. And if "fate" wants you to become a criminal, it doesn't mean you shouldn't go to jail for it.
 

piinyouri

New member
Mar 18, 2012
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Eddie the head said:
piinyouri said:
Well, there's free will of course.
But then who's to say it's free will? What if the choices we think we are making for ourselves is exactly where our fate will lead us in the end?
So? You still made the choices. The fact that your choices might be predetermined doesn't mean they have any less impact.

This is the kind of question the answer "quit fucking worrying about it" was made for. If you have free will, grate continue living your life how you want, if you don't grate continue living your life. Personally I'm going to spend my time wondering about questions that have answers that will help me in my day to day life. (whether that life is predetermined or not)
I wasn't saying it in a "none of it matters anyway" kind of way.
I agree, our choices, even if they all do lead to a predetermined conclusion are choice as far as our limited human perception is concerned.
 

Heronblade

New member
Apr 12, 2011
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Only the kind of fate we make for ourselves.

Even if free will is an illusion, with every choice determined by chemistry beyond any semblance of our control, that chemistry is in turn influenced by physical states that are utterly random in nature.
 

TWRule

New member
Dec 3, 2010
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I reject any scientific basis for answering this question, so whatever my position, I'm not taking a position in regard to the behavior of particles...

That said, this is a richer question than the usual debates about it would suggest. I understand 'fate' negatively and 'destiny' positively, but hold that humanity broadly has control over each for themselves (if our fate is to be wiped out by the death of the sun, or our destiny to find an eternal home in heaven, either of those, and all other possibilities, will have been our responsibility) because we have power to construct and realize those possibilities.

On an individual level, well it gets a bit murkier still. Obviously, on your deathbed, you could call that your 'fate', or say of someone who had already passed that it was their 'fate' to do so, but whether and what form of meaning we attribute to such a happening is also our construction. We have the power to either make necessary or unnecessary each and every event. For related reasons, I do not understand there to be such a thing as individual destiny - all persons have their destiny bound up in human destiny; any talk of my personal destiny will only be my share in the greater destiny of humanity, and it can't be understood or realized in isolation.

As for 'free will' - I find the terms in which that debate is usually couched to be too crude; all I'll say is that from the perspective of possible human experience, I must always choose, and on every level (including the choice of whether to see myself as one with free power to choose, though to me the latter choice would always be one in bad faith). Nothing else matters.
 
Sep 8, 2013
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They say that everything happens for a reason.
Then, there are those smart ***** who go ahead and state that "we choose our actions".
Yes; we DO choose our actions, but there is a reason for our decisions.
It goes a bit deeper.
 

SadisticFire

New member
Oct 1, 2012
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We all have a fate, because there is a cause, and there is always a predictable(However seemingly random) effect. Your brain is a bag of chemicals. We're only responding to the interactions of other things, like how mercury will fuck aluminium up. To us, it's free will. To some one examining reality from another dimension, it's just chemical reactions. <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.827657.20125288>gnihton said earlier in the thread. We're predetermined by effects to causes.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

Henchgoat Emperor
May 15, 2010
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Action or lack thereof determines consequences. Thats as far as I'll go with fate. There's still the chaos factor that is the monkey wrench in the gears. Things happen without our ability to change them. Other things happen because we can make them happen... Free will? Maybe.
 

ZZoMBiE13

Ate My Neighbors
Oct 10, 2007
1,908
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None of those poll options fit my personal take on it. I know it's not fashionable these days, but I still believe in God. Though I don't think he's some hand holding deity who is watching my every move from afar. I believe we have free will to make the most of our opportunities and to face our challenges. Basically I think it's up to humanity to get where we're going, not some predetermined path that we're going through the motions to fulfill.
 
Aug 1, 2010
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Pre-determinism, at least in my mind, breaks itself.

If everything is going to happen a certain way, no matter what, at some point it can be completely predicted. Either with a computer the size of a planet or some kind of superbeing, whatever. If it's pre-determined, it's predictable.

As soon as you predict it, you can act in such a way that negates that prediction.

Thus, the pre-determined future was wrong, making nothing pre-determined.

It's one giant paradox.
 

Do4600

New member
Oct 16, 2007
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I don't think it could possibly matter to us because we have no knowledge of it.

If I think I have free will, I could have been fated to think that.

If I think I am following my fate I could just be exercising my free will to imagine I'm just following a fate.

No matter what, our future will be a surprise to us, so it doesn't matter if it's predetermined by the universe or based on our choices.

So if we're fated to think we're fated, or we're fated to think we exercise free will, or we exercise free will to think we're fated or we exercise free will to think we have free will, it really doesn't matter to us, it's a circular argument that has no answer or bearing because we aren't aware of what the true state is.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
Jan 24, 2009
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I think that sums it up.

Any talk of predetermined fate and destiny is bullshit no one should care about. Sorry, I just feel that strongly about it.
 

Angie7F

WiseGurl
Nov 11, 2011
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I dont believe in fate. I just believe that I need to kickass before I die because I am so freakin wonderful
 

Rowan93

New member
Aug 25, 2011
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Sir Thomas Sean Connery said:
Pre-determinism, at least in my mind, breaks itself.

If everything is going to happen a certain way, no matter what, at some point it can be completely predicted. Either with a computer the size of a planet or some kind of superbeing, whatever. If it's pre-determined, it's predictable.

As soon as you predict it, you can act in such a way that negates that prediction.

Thus, the pre-determined future was wrong, making nothing pre-determined.

It's one giant paradox.
If the computer isn't modelling itself when making the prediction, it's an imperfect prediction and it's no strike against pre-determinism if it gets changed when the thing it's not taking into account when making the prediction goes on to render the prediction inaccurate.

If the computer is modelling itself when making the prediction, then it'll take into account how the person receiving the prediction is going to react and how they'll change the outcome, and it'll adjust the outcome accordingly, and continue that recursion until it reaches a stable state, where the prediction causes the future to happen the way it was predicted to happen.
 

MeisterKleister

Regular Member
Mar 9, 2012
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zombiejoe said:
Simple question. Do you believe in any kind of destiny or fate?

I suppose it's not THAT simple of a question, as it can dive into philosophy, faith, ect, but here are my two cents.

I don't like the idea that things have been predetermined. I don't think it has ever sat right with me. Wouldn't destiny imply that a rapist rapes someone because the universe made him, or that a killer has killed someone because he was always meant to, and nothing could be prevented? If that's the case, why should we care if bad things happen if they're supposed to happen? And when you fail at something, it might be easing on the mind to say that it was out of your power, but I'd rather be able to know it was my own fault if I messed up and improve from there.

But maybe I'm just thinking about it in the wrong way. What do you all think?
'Fate' and 'destiny' generally imply supernatural causes, while determinism does not.
Anyway, I do not believe in the supernatural and I don't believe in anything that I would call "destiny" or "fate" in this kind of sense.
And as far as I understand, evidence so far suggests that our universe is not deterministic, however I also think that whether or not it is deterministic is irrelevant to questions of free will (or "fate" / "destiny").
I am what you call a 'compatibilist'.

(The relevant lecture starts at 13:50)
 

Rowan93

New member
Aug 25, 2011
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The fact that you can predict what someone would choose to do in a situation does not mean that the choice isn't freely made. That strikes me as a ridiculous idea. Free will and determinism coexist.
 

Whispering Cynic

New member
Nov 11, 2009
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Nothing is predetermined, your fate is a result of your interaction with the world: with its people and its events throughout your life. It is up to each and every one of us to decide how much we let these outside factors shape our destiny, and how much of it we shape ourselves.

Free will means you can do anything you want. You can choose to be the master of your own fate, the only question is: how far are you willing to go achieve your goals?