Opinion of Fate?

I agree with Kurt Vonnegit, Jr that our lives are determined by Fate regardless of how we try to do other things. I am of that opinion, because it fits what has happened to me and hat I have observed around me.

I don't believe in fate. I believe that sometimes things work out in a way that seems meant to be, but that things happen as a result of the choices we make and luck. I don't believe in divine plans, or that any future path is set in stone.

Fate to me is the the 50 Foot Woman or Godzilla surrounded by a series of standing dominoes. One way or the other, it's her/his actions that set events in motion, and the synchronicity that follows can be traced back to that first step.

Hi WordCount. If you are indeed 14, you are clever and articulate. I believe there is something called Fate. But I believe that fate is determined by our actions, and our choices and actions are determined by our genetics. I believe this because this is what my daughter is studying in grad school--evolutionary anthropology/psychology--and I hear about it constantly. It makes sense to me.

WordCount said:

Is there a reason why? Do you just prefer to think of it as "it's in my hands," or do you have another reason?

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Part of it is emotional. I don't like the idea that people suffer, both individually and in largescale travesties, because it's meant to be according to a plan. I just can't believe that.

But also, I just haven't seen any evidence of fate in my life. Sometimes things work out in ways that seem meant to be, but I have no way of knowing if they would have been better if I'd made different choices instead. Most things in my life can easily be traced back to decisions made and chance happenings. And I can't believe that the bad things in my life have happened for a reason.

I believe in karma and fate but I think they're more flexible than mechanistically determined.

I came across the following in a Buddhist text which works for me.

Sew an action, reap a habit. Sew a habit, reap a character. Sew a character, reap a destiny.

The only fate I believe in is the fate determined by people: "hey, Lions kill to live. You, you're human: English -- work, contribute to society, have kids, get married, (then we'll let you die in comfort if you can afford it)".

Whether we follow that path is then down individual instinct/intellect (or lack of, depending on the context). But I think those instincts/intellect are schooled: the nature/nurture (genetic coding and the society we're brought up in) debate. It's genetic coding that allows us to experience hurt e.g. from a burn, we're also born with the capacity to learn from observation that fire=heat=pain, but it's how we're brought up that helps determines whether we touch the flame and feel that hurt ourselves. I say 'helps' because intellect will take you to a certain piont, then the individual's instinct kicks in. Despite what they know and have learnt, there will be that split second where your instinct will either lead you to touch the flame, or it won't. No predetermined path, just choices.

No fate but what we make.

Patterns and probabilities sure. Fate, no.

WordCount said:

if someone went back in time to stop the Lincoln assassination, and succeeded in dealing with the murder would triumph? Or, would fate join in and topple a piano on Lincoln's head?

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I believe that if Lincoln hadn't been assassinated then he'd still be dead today - i mean he wasn't going to make it fit and healthy to 2011. If he'd lived then there's a very very high chance that he'd have had another "accident" before he died because many people have accidents every day. There's a smaller chance that accident would have been fatal, and a tiny but nevertheless quantifiable chance that the accident would have involved a piano because someone is going to have a piano related accident somewhere this year. It could have been Lincoln.

If Lincoln had been the one to have that accident within a few days of a failed assassination attempt then we'd talk about it to the end of time, everyone would have heard about it and some people would see it as evidence of "fate".

A boy I went to school with had this type of incredible misfortune when his father died in a car crash on the way home from the hospital after a very traumatic kidney transplant. They'd thought for weeks that he wouldn't survive the op only to face another tragedy. Not fate, but with many billions of people in the world some of them are going to experience extrordinarily unlikely coincidences.

when you take the random chance stuff out of the equation I'm a big subscriber to the school of thought that believes that the harder someone works the luckier they get.

I believe that the only great pattern behind the universe is that the more a person believes in something the harder they work towards it and so the greater the chance that it will come to pass. Unfortunately I also believe the opposite is true and so if someone believes the world is stopping them from doing something then there will always be obstacles in their way.....but whether a piano drops on your head or not is pure chance influenced only by the number of times you walk underneath a piano or the number of piano owners you've pissed off.

Craig

The web of cause and effect is too complicated for the chains of causation to be separated, but they are all in there. While there are probabilities that are less than 100%, for some possible events, most of the time the chains of cause and effect point to a single outcome as the most probable, and that is what Fate is about.

I would love for free-will to exist in real terms, but it is just what the sum of the causes makes us want to have happen, so even the free-will is predetermined.

I don't believe in "fate," but then, I don't really believe in any external, intangible, independently-acting force.

I don't believe in absolute free will, either, though, because psychological research doesn't support it and our environments impose some restrictions on us. Free will implies that we use our conscious selves to govern our own thoughts, emotions, memories, motivations, sensations, and behaviors; research shows that a lot of this is determined somewhere outside the realm of our consciousness. (In our brains and bodies, still, but not where we're aware of it.) In addition, environment and culture play roles in determining some of this stuff for us.

It also implies that the self is a singular discernible unchanging "thing" that acts as an agent, and I don't agree with that either.

I believe in patterns of behavior, in commonalities in natural laws and biology, in the truisms shown via anthropology and history, in genes and the influence of culture and environment upon them. These things will, out of circumstance, create certain outcomes for certain individuals apart from that individual's awareness and conscious decisions. If that is what you mean by "fate" then...I "believe" in it, I guess, but it is highly changeable and unpredictable. It can be affected by a person's decisions or someone else's. There's nothing that's set in stone: everything is influenced by what came before it, but it is only ever written as it happens.

So, for example, do think if someone went back in time to stop the Lincoln assassination, and succeeded in dealing with the murder would triumph? Or, would fate join in and topple a piano on Lincoln's head?

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I don't think "fate" would "do" crap. I do think Lincoln made a lot of enemies and his being assassinated was not unlikely. If it was stopped, someone else might've done it later. Not necessarily, but it's possible. Or Lincoln might have succumbed to his own mental and physical illnesses before his "natural" time. Or he might just have died like any normal non-assassinated person of heart failure or whathaveyou in his old age. No way to tell.

WordCount said:

So, for example, do think if someone went back in time to stop the Lincoln assassination, and succeeded in dealing with the murder would triumph? Or, would fate join in and topple a piano on Lincoln's head?

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It's a fascinating thought experiment, even if you don't believe in Fate. Personally I think 'our' history would continue unchanged, and the person who prevented the assassination would find themselves in an alternate universe where the future would be different because of their act. However, if the multiverse theory doesn't pan out, then that will be nonsense.

Buffysquirrel said:

It's a fascinating thought experiment, even if you don't believe in Fate. Personally I think 'our' history would continue unchanged, and the person who prevented the assassination would find themselves in an alternate universe where the future would be different because of their act. However, if the multiverse theory doesn't pan out, then that will be nonsense.

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I agree with that. Because somewhere there has to be a universe where the assassination succeeded, because if there wasn't then the time traveller wouldn't have come back to prevent the assassination, because there wouldn't have been one to prevent. But if they weren't there to prevent it then the assassination would have succeeded, so...my brain hurts.

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

My take on the subject: Fate is what happens when you aren't true to yourself, and Destiny is what happens when you are. We have the choice as to which we take. And so does everyone else. Which makes Life (caps because I mean "all of life") complicated.

Experience, and yeah, obviously, I'm religious. (But I don't buy into the Christian predestination vs. freewill debate. Too many variables.)

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

WordCount said:

Okay, now I'm ruling in on the subject. Do I believe in fate? Absolutely, yes I do. Why? Well, like snick, i have seen things that look too coincidental to happen just by chance.

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Weird coincidences (what Jung called synchronicity) can definitely happen. I've had a couple of ultra-weird ones myself.

I think a worldview where everything is ultimately interconnected is viable which does not necessitate that everything unfolds in an absolutely mechanistic, predetermined fashion.

You might want to check out this thread.