Do you believe in fate?

Fate is a way of making sense of the universe. I don't believe in it in my forebrain, but my monkey brain kind of likes the idea. See also divine retribution and karma (but not Instant Karma). When I am betting on horses I always go with hunches. Not because I believe they are in any way meaningful, but because I'll be pissed off if they pay out and I missed it.

This does not correlate with regrets, because, well, I basically regret half my life. But, according to My Philosophy, "it is better to regret something you have done than it is to regret something you *haven't* done" (can't remember if this was expressed first by Andre Gide or the Butthole Surfers.)

As to hunches or intuition, I absolutely believe in them, as well, because the sheer fact is that our senses and our brains take in far too much information on a split-secondly basis for our poor little monkeybrain consciousness to handle. We filter out more information than we ever actually consciously process, because we *have* to. Just because that information does not hit our consciousness does not mean that we have not processed it or stored it on some level. Hence, many "hunches" or "intuitions" are actually drawing on sensory input that we are not even aware that we have taken in.

I wouldn't agree that causality is a scientific fact. It's more of a philosophical problem which is still pretty much unsolved.

especially when you get to freaky subatomic levels- and you get an even freakier level of coincidence and things happening For A Reason which cannot be explained by science

I don't quite understand what you mean here. Any chance of an example?

Anyway, this is somewhat off the point. Most people who believe in fate don't think about it in such terms. They seem to appeal to fate as some kinf of surrogate god. It's not about the future being set in stone, it's about the 'meaning' thing. Beyond the laws of physics, in what sense do you believe that things happen for a 'reason', kate? Whose reason?

James: So, it's not fate, it's luck, and I guess some people are just luckier than others.

How is your definition of "luck" or "unluck" any different from fate, really?

RickyT: I wouldn't agree that causality is a scientific fact.

Sloppy logic on my part. My bad, when I have had my scientist granny rub this home a thousand times. OK, causality is not a scientific fact. Correlation, however, *is* a scientific fact. If I've been told once, I've been told a hundred times, "correlation does not neccessarily imply causation" because as a casual observer you have no way of telling which way the causation runs.

The point of my sub-atomic argument is completely lost, because I went back and edited 2 sentaces together, and in the process managed to change the meaning, and don't remember exactly what it was that was intended. My memories of physics are ten years out of date, and fuzzily understood at that, but I think my point was this:

On a sub-atomic level, the nice Newtonian laws of cause and effect break down, and though things happen For No Reason, still they happen. The idea that things can be so chaotic and random on a very basic and fundamental level, yet when we zoom out to the level we live on, Newton's laws still work. So out of all that chaos and randomness, there is still enough of an order to make laws out of.

Nick: Beyond the laws of physics, in what sense do you believe that things happen for a 'reason', kate? Whose reason?

Whose reason? If I could answer that, I'd be a philosopher or a theologian.

For the former question, I have two answers, one cynical, and one a bit more mystical airy-fairy.

1) because without believing that there is some sort of guiding influence, life (especially modern life, free from gods and societal order) becomes too scary to contemplate and manage. It is easier for the human brain to believe that *something* - even something malevolent- is in control of your life, or history, or whatever, than it is to accept the fundamentally scarier idea that NOTHING is in control and everything is truly, ultimately, utterly random. Hence why conspiracy theories are so popular.

2) My life is a weird thing. Whenever I try to explain the idea of fate, I have to tell them about the 22s. I am "followed" by the number 22. I don't think that it has any mystical, sacred, or numerological meaning, I just know that wherever I go, there are an out of proportion number of random 22s that turn up. The 22s don't mean anything in particular, good or bad, they just mean that I am *supposed* to be there.

Now maybe this is something I am creating in my own head, because once I started noticing 22s, I couldn't stop noticing them, and went out of my way to look for them. Especially after other people started experiencing the effect, after I told them. (OK, some people, when I told them, noticed 22s following me around that they did not see when they were not around me. Other people reached for their prescription pads and decided to put me on Lithium. The 22s got *worse*.) When I decided to start looking at random for another number - I think I picked 23 - I didn't see half as many 23s as I saw 22s.

Now, some cynics might say that there is a certain amount of any random numbers or phrases floating around the world, and that I feel that I am followed by 22s because I am looking for them. This is the way cynics approach fate- you see coincidences and patterns because the human mind *looks* for coincidences and patterns.

The fact that I might know this consciously does not stop the 22s. Fate happens whether you believe in it or not. There is a lovely commentary on this in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia":

A man gets stranded in the desert, the Arabs all say "ah, it is written that he shall die." Lawrence gets all uppity, rides out after him, risks life and limb, and against all odds, returns with the man, both of them still alive, claiming "Nothing is written until *I* say it is written!" in an attempt to prove that he is above god, fate, and kismet.

A few scenes later, there is a dispute between two groups, and it is decided that one of the men must be executed. The leader of the party, Lawrence, must do the executing. As he goes over to shoot the man, he sees that it is the same man that he has rescued from the desert. One of the other group shrugs and says "Ah, he is to die, it must have been written."

So there you go.

You did ask.

I might actually agree with that on some level. But it still doesn't explain the 22s.

I guess Dan's version of fate is pretty innocuous - I can't really argue with it. But when people say something like "ooh - it was fate that I got knocked down by that car, cause otherwise I would never have met my lovely nurse wife", then that's where things get a bit more weird.

Kate and Gareth: this thing about life being impossible to live without making some comfortable fantasy about fate that you know is rubbish really. How do you do that? To me it's like setting your watch 10 mins fast so that you won't be late for things. I mean "YOU KNOW IT'S 10 MINUTES LATE!". Actually, that's not a very good analogy, as I am perfectly capable of forgetting such a thing if it's early in the morning or whatever. But pretending to yourself that there's some guiding force when you know there isn't really? That's pretty fucked up, man. Or is some kind of post-modern religion?

I know that is a common enough feeling, but I've never really been able to look at it like that myself. I kind of like to believe that my actions have some influence over some stuff that happens to me. Knowing that my life was controlled by some malign outside influence would be the very opposite of comforting.

Kate, your thing with 22s is a little odder. I'm not sure I can explain that, although your definition of a cynic pretty much covers me. I'd also cynically suggest that while your conscious mind may have decided to look for 23s, your subconcious mind was obviously still hung up on 22s.

Never seen Lawrence of Arabia, but that scene description makes me really, really want to! (It sounds more like dramatic irony than fate to me, though. Cynicism rocks!)

2. A final result or consequence; an outcome.
3. Unfavorable destiny; doom.
4. Fates Greek & Roman Mythology. The three goddesses, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who control human destiny. Used with the.

Dan - I thought the general idea was that there was some kind of 'force, principle, or power' behind it all. Yes, you can say in a banal, definition 2 way "To meet and married was their fate", but that doesn't really tell you anything more than "they met and got married". I assume people generally mean more than "things happen" when they say they believe in fate.

I don't, though. Ergo, I'm not crazy, you're the one that's crazy, guitar guitar etc.

I am making no sense tonight.

Newtonian physics (which may or may not provide an argument that the macroscopic world is deterministic) doesn't properly account for certain phenomena, say, on the atomic or subatomic levels. Quantum mechanics does better, at least, but it has its own problems. It's not even clear whether the fundamental indeterminacies the Copenhagen interpretation claims are really in the world, actually are - and if they are, what effect this has, if any, on the apparently deterministic macroscopic level. And by supposedly settling that question, Copenhagen (which is the received view, sort of dogma, and the one usually presented as "quantum mechanics") creates another ENORMOUS problem - providing an account for the nondeterministic collapse of the wave function (cf. "is Schroedinger's cat dead or alive? when?"). This stuff isn't just nitpicking or side problems, either - it's serious enough that if you want to use science to justify your non-science arguments, you would probably be better off not doing so with "randomness" on the quantum level.

I'm just saying that it is an irrational faith/belief system, akin to religion, in that there is nothing logical a believer can say or do to make a non-believer have faith, and that there is nothing that a non-believer can say or do to shake the faith of a believer.

You can try and discuss it or rationalise it, but in the end, all you are doing is engaging in "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" style pointless debate.

Thanks.

And if it's so that our conception of time is a certain delusion, described by Kant, fate is a competing delusion or fact, one which as strongly felt, an occasional liberation from sequences?

The cheek! It's the new Socratic dialogue, yo!

maybe i will accept fatnick as god. if only to piss off all the people that are irritated by him.

Perhaps I shall add that onto my list of regrets but I am not going to do anything about it.

hi

IT WAS FATE

I've never really understood what people are on about when they talk about 'fate'. Attempts to pin down what they mean have usually resulted in more confusion. Generally, they don't believe in predestination (religious or scientific-determinist in nature) but they still seem to believe that things 'happen for a reason' in some irritatingly undefined way. What are they on about?

BAH too fucking OTM. I don't believe in fate at all, tho many people who say that DO believe something like 2nd to last sentence.

Okay see I was brought up Mormon (blah blah who doesn't know) and they have this really specific thing abt fate not being real, no pre-ordination etc etc etc, Adam ate the fruit bcz God gave him the "free agency" (big meme/buzzword there) to do so. BUT OTOH everyone "chose" their families before coming to earth in the pre-existence post-war in heaven and so that is a very big (and hilariously RONG) reason to love yr family no matter what: you chose each other before you were born! It was......fate not fate...no one could ever give me a good answer on this!

Or maybe mark s is right bcz I'm a gemini too...hahahahahahaha

determinism is for suckers.

NO FUCKING KIDDING

yes there are two paths you can go by but in the long run there's still time to change the road yr on oh shit I just spilled bongwater on my ferret

mehlt otm

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I believe in fate more than any other type of luck. I like naked boys
― Jake Jebidiah Preston, Thursday, January 10, 2002 8:00 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

^^ Uhhhhh.

I do not believe in fate. That said, sometimes things happen and it's hard not to wonder if they weren't "meant" to happen. I don't believe in it in my forebrain, but my monkey brain kind of likes the idea. <---- Basically that. I don't know - I'm rambling and using the random thread function again.

Heraclitus wrote that character is destiny. He was famously terse and liked a bit of ambiguity in his pronouncements. Unpacked, that would probably mean something like, the present contents of your mind determines how you will react to random events and therefore selects the path your life will take going forward.

I'm not sure I even agree with that fairly mild formulation. Because of the number of variables involved, the random collisions and the feedback effects, fate is a pretty nebulous idea all the way around.

As for whether certain things over which you have no control were "meant" to happen to you for a purpose, I would say that the sense of such events having a purpose is added after the fact by your brain, which is struggling to make your life make sense. Chaos is pretty intolerable, so we explain it into a form we can tolerate.

I think I agree with everything you've said just there but I'm operating on about three hours sleep so will need to come back later and read again. I certainly agree with the second 1/2 - it's the first I need to think about more.