Fate

your actions are predetrmined because YOU do them
you do the actions you do BECAUSE they are predetermined

its pretty odd. fate cant exist without us, but we cant exist without fate either.

e.g.

man 1 : dude im just gonna sit here and wait to die cause whats meant to happen to me WILL happen reguardless of what i do.
man2: yes but if you get up right now and work well on your already highly payed and safe job for a year, by the end of it, you will be alive and in a much better place as opposed to if you sit here and wait to die.
man 1: but everything is already predestined man!
man2: yes thats true. but what i said is also true.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
your actions are predetrmined because YOU do them
you do the actions you do BECAUSE they are predetermined

its pretty odd. fate cant exist without us, but we cant exist without fate either.

e.g.

man 1 : dude im just gonna sit here and wait to die cause whats meant to happen to me WILL happen reguardless of what i do.
man2: yes but if you get up right now and work well on your already highly payed and safe job for a year, by the end of it, you will be alive and in a much better place as opposed to if you sit here and wait to die.
man 1: but everything is already predestined man!
man2: yes thats true. but what i said is also true.

what i am saying is that they are two different points of view. they SEEM mutually exclusive, yet are both true in their own right completely. currently{either due to flawed logic or semantics} a compromise hasnt been reached on a situation where they can both exist simultaneously without contradicting each other. thus making the argument dualistic. which is the way i think itll remain for a while. i think the problem is our misunderstanding of free will. we seem to think of our conciounce as independant of cause-affect and the going ons in the world we live in and think it exists in some higher dimension where it can choose outcomes, unaffected by the conditions in the lower world. that obviously isnt the case, we shud more appropriately call it PERCEIVED free will. our willful decision are infact a product of cause and affect and we are PART of that cause and affect. so yea, fate both does and doesnt exist. although i dont think traditional language is adequate enough to deal fully with the issue. on the other hand, there is no such thing as unconditional free will.

really well put leo 🙂

Originally posted by inimalist
really well put leo 🙂

Originally posted by leonheartmm
what i am saying is that they are two different points of view. they SEEM mutually exclusive, yet are both true in their own right completely. currently{either due to flawed logic or semantics} a compromise hasnt been reached on a situation where they can both exist simultaneously without contradicting each other. thus making the argument dualistic. which is the way i think itll remain for a while. i think the problem is our misunderstanding of free will. we seem to think of our conciounce as independant of cause-affect and the going ons in the world we live in and think it exists in some higher dimension where it can choose outcomes, unaffected by the conditions in the lower world. that obviously isnt the case, we shud more appropriately call it PERCEIVED free will. our willful decision are infact a product of cause and affect and we are PART of that cause and affect. so yea, fate both does and doesnt exist. although i dont think traditional language is adequate enough to deal fully with the issue. on the other hand, there is no such thing as unconditional free will.

Now, you apparently already made up your mind that free will in the common definition does not exist. That's plain and simple what you are saying. There is no "fate exists and doesn't exist"...in your example it just fully does exist. We are as of now limited to our language (and I have not seen any reason you gave why it shouldn't be sufficient).

simple example. if your will didnt exist, a fate dependant on that will wudnt exist. the future wud be different if you didnt exert your will. maybe we shud just call it WILL as opposed to FREE will.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
simple example. if your will didnt exist, a fate dependant on that will wudnt exist. the future wud be different if you didnt exert your will. maybe we shud just call it WILL as opposed to FREE will.

Nonsense. If my will is not free it cannot be changed and could not be different. I am uncomfortable with calling it fate, but certainly everything would be determined. Sure if the stone wouldn't lie over there the future would be different, but it does lie over there and that is unchangeable.

are you aware with wave function collapse in quantum mechanics? {im assuming you are} you shud know that even a an ultimate sense, the world branches off into almost infinite physical possibilities at any point in time. why do you think your conciounce only chooses ONE of these paths and you only remember ONE distinct past? even though this is besides the original point i was making, it still presents a hurdle to your idea of completely unchangeable physical fate.

coming back to your post. ill try to explain it what little i can. your will IS the change. your conciounce is not SEPERATE from fate. to the last part where you say it DOES lie over there. i understand what you mean, and frankly speaking in simple physical terms, that is what presents itself to us. but take another example concerning more macrological processes. its true that thing can only turn out in one way, but say you choose{in whatevr is basic human perception of choice} right now that that free will doesnt exist and hence nuthing can change so you wont even try, nuthing WILL change. as opposed to you saying that things can change and youll try, and if you do things WILL change. i can not tell you how this works in phsyical mechanics, but it does work sumhow.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
are you aware with wave function collapse in quantum mechanics? {im assuming you are} you shud know that even a an ultimate sense, the world branches off into almost infinite physical possibilities at any point in time. why do you think your conciounce only chooses ONE of these paths and you only remember ONE distinct past? even though this is besides the original point i was making, it still presents a hurdle to your idea of completely unchangeable physical fate.

I am not really sure whether my conscious only chooses one of the paths, I am pretty sure that I am only aware of one of those paths though (in the same aspect I am also only aware of choosing one of the paths). And it is not my idea of completely unchangeable physical fate. It's just the definition of fate, personally I fancy the idea of at least partially free will.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
coming back to your post. ill try to explain it what little i can. your will IS the change. your conciounce is not SEPERATE from fate. to the last part where you say it DOES lie over there. i understand what you mean, and frankly speaking in simple physical terms, that is what presents itself to us. but take another example concerning more macrological processes. its true that thing can only turn out in one way, but say you choose{in whatevr is basic human perception of choice} right now that that free will doesnt exist and hence nuthing can change so you wont even try, nuthing WILL change. as opposed to you saying that things can change and youll try, and if you do things WILL change. i can not tell you how this works in phsyical mechanics, but it does work sumhow.

Your gibberish there makes no sense, I am frankly amazed inimalist would forward a notion you brought up.

You are trying to make something really straightforward seem more complicated. I get what you are saying, that if I was determined to decide that fate exists it would then lead to me not leading an as succesful life. But the problem is the determination. If it is determined it will happen, if I can actually choose then it is not determined. It is straightforward and easy to understand, there is no contradiction whatsoever present.

Final Destination.... nuff said

Originally posted by Bardock42
You didn't actually read what he said, did you?

I actually did, amazingly enough

ya, from what I see, he is pointing out the subjective/objective discrepancy in understanding free will. I agree there is a huge difference between talking about free will as a subjective thing and how it relates to human will and autonomy versus talking about it on a cause/effect type level, be it automatic responses, molecular or atomic determinism, etc.

I also agree that, here in the west at least, our language is highly responsible for there being much difficulty in understanding the "real" nature of fate or will. I'm more familiar with the argument as it pertains to dualism, but it should apply the same here. The statement "do I control my brain or does my brain control me" is sort of an example. Many people will ponder this question, and its inanity is not necessarily instantly obvious. The fact that people make the distinction between I and brain, again speaking only of the west, makes it very difficult to find language appropriate to really describe how these things work, given that there is no distinction between the I and the brain.

Originally posted by inimalist
I actually did, amazingly enough

ya, from what I see, he is pointing out the subjective/objective discrepancy in understanding free will. I agree there is a huge difference between talking about free will as a subjective thing and how it relates to human will and autonomy versus talking about it on a cause/effect type level, be it automatic responses, molecular or atomic determinism, etc.

I also agree that, here in the west at least, our language is highly responsible for there being much difficulty in understanding the "real" nature of fate or will. I'm more familiar with the argument as it pertains to dualism, but it should apply the same here. The statement "do I control my brain or does my brain control me" is sort of an example. Many people will ponder this question, and its inanity is not necessarily instantly obvious. The fact that people make the distinction between I and brain, again speaking only of the west, makes it very difficult to find language appropriate to really describe how these things work, given that there is no distinction between the I and the brain.

Fate is an interesting word. Fate would include predestination of some sort. I don't actually believe in a full fate existence only because I believe every moment and every action can change fate. This being said, however doesn't mean that there may not be some preexisting parts of fate woven in. This we cannot know.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I would disagree with there not being a distinction between the I and the brain, you could go both ways really, for one you could state that "I" am my brain, the rest of my body and possibly a soulish thing..or you could say the "I" we talk about is a part of the brain, possibly what we call consciousness. I wouldn't say the I and the brain are the same thing (it seems like an odd definition to me), even though they are obviously related in ways.

well, everything you experience is based upon brain activity, including your sense of self and possession of your body. There are experiments where people have induced out of body experiences in people just by changing their perspective of themselves through VR goggles.

I agree its an odd definition, but that is only because the way our brains processes reality and action ends up feeling like we are a ghost in the shell, but there are lots of examples, especially from brain damage studies, that show much of it is subject to regions of our brains communicating with each other.

And yes, I see the irony in making my point and also using terms like my brain or our brains. It is just, given how we experience the world, we have developed words and grammar that essentially make it impossible to sensically talk about the me/brain

Originally posted by inimalist
well, everything you experience is based upon brain activity, including your sense of self and possession of your body. There are experiments where people have induced out of body experiences in people just by changing their perspective of themselves through VR goggles.

Yes, but that was my point. Not every brain activity is something "i" experience.

Originally posted by inimalist
I agree its an odd definition, but that is only because the way our brains processes reality and action ends up feeling like we are a ghost in the shell, but there are lots of examples, especially from brain damage studies, that show much of it is subject to regions of our brains communicating with each other.

Again, I see your general point. I am just not comfortable with brain = I. I think that would be an incorrect definition of brain as well as "I"

in the words of the great morningstar

"fate is a slippery concept isnt it. most of the time, isnt fate just an excuse for us to do what we feal like doing anyway? "

Originally posted by BackFire
Fate is an interesting concept when you think about it. Especially when it's believed by those same people who believe in heaven and hell.

If you have no control over your own actions then how can god blame you and send you to hell for killing someone when you are simply living out your "fate" that he created for you. Never really made sense to me.

WOW! Is all I can say.... Absolutely incredible! I really like this quote. I'm going to put it as my sig! Personally I believe in choice. You always have a choice no matter what the situation. Unless you're knocked out of coarse. 🙂

Your will is a terrible thing to waste

I came up with that myself, ya know.. 😖mart:

Let me put it to you this way. You can be a victim or one that makes a difference. We all have circumstances, it is how you relate to them and make the higher choice of them....

The only thing you are fated to do is choose.