Topic awaiting preservation: Fate ?

Fate is something I often wondered about. Iw as going to write something about it on my website, when I became aware I couldn't choose if it was real or not.

Sometimes, I have (and I'm sure at least some other people here experienced something similar) what I call premonitary dreams. I dream something during the night, but then when I wake up I don't remember it at all. And then, it could be two weeks later or three months later, when I'm doing something I suddenly become aware I already dreamt it. I remember my dream, and therefore I know what I am going to do during the following seconds. It is strange, because I know what I am going to do, sometimes it is stupid, I could change it, but I don't. This is extremly weird. It happens for normal events in the life, but it also already happened once during the first time I could have died in my life.

As a scientist, I don't really know what to think about those "dreams", whether they are true or false. I know that next year I'm going to study spaces of "x" dimensions in class, and I already know that time is considered as a normal dimension. Which means we could go backward and forward into it. So, if we can remember things from the past, why can't we 'remember' things from the future ? We only use 5% of our brain, perhaps that's something we can do, but are not used to yet ? Something we need to develop during centuries ? it would be scaring, doesn't it ?

I'm also sure this issue about fate will interested Matrix fans. I don't know if you took the time to think a bit about it, but in Reloaded there were basically two visions about fate :

The Prophet said every choices were made, we were just trying to understand the choices, basically it means fate exists and our future is already planned.
The Merovingian said that the events could only obey a law of reciprocity, the future being only created by the consequences of our acts. Which means fate simply doesn't exist.

So, what do you think about all this ? Is our future planned, or is there a fate ? And if it is planned, can we still change it ? Or the future is only a notion, nothing is planned in our universe, life is at it is, we are creating our own future ?

I would tempted to choose the second option, but I can't deny my dreams. I'm really open to every opiniongs, thoughts or suggestions (even religious ones ).

fate is obviously BS (well apart from that one above).

get on with living.... time is short.............

*waits for the religious crowd to pipe up*

Well, I suppose I would classify as being part of the religious crowd, but in all honesty, fate has always struck me as a handy excuse for people who don't feel like taking responsibility for their actions.

If you want my "religious" opinion on the matter (and I'm not sure you do, but here goes), I believe that God knows the future. I also believe that we have free will, and although God may know what we are going to do, He does not interfere to change our actions--the choice is ultimately up to us.

I also believe that God does have a plan for the world and indeed for us as well. This may sound contradictory to what I just said, but it is not. We have the choice--we can either strive to live as God would have us live, or we can ignore Him completely. But He is not going to force us either way.

So, to sum up, I don't believe in fate as some unchangeable destiny towards which we are inexorably drawn. It may be romantic to think of things in terms of fate sometimes, but the fact is that we make the choices.




www.liminality.org

I'm thinking about writing a book about fate. How does this sound:

If you found out from the future that you would die in exactly 72 hours, what would you do?

Good, eh?

"Good eh?"

Nope. Cliche, uninteresting, and most likely drastically melodramatic.

And what does it have to do with 'fate'

Fate exists only in stories, where the author had leisure to establish starting conditions which really do draw the characters inexorably to a conclusion. In real life, however, even if our starting conditions form the limits of our life, those starting conditions were made by choices which were in turn constrained by previous conditions which were made by choices... and so forth. No individual human can claim to be completely free to control his own "fate," but the world as a whole has been created by a continuous and sedimentary process of choice and chance.

Now, religiously, I believe in a "meta-order" -- a universal plan that is not bound by the laws of causality. But the real world is provably random and choice-based in every scientific aspect; the meta-order manifests outside scientific laws, and its shape gets fuzzier the harder you look for it. As a result, I can argue against fate in any specific circumstance while still believing in a universal plan that plays out on a billiion-year timetable.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

What I meant was, if you found out you were going to die in 72 hours, would you try to stop yourself from being killed, how would you react, knowing any action you take will lead to your death, no matter how spontaneous it was. Therefore, not cliche. Paranoia, fear, fate.

-RN3-

Sounds like an episode of Star Trek. A couple of them, actually.

having had them myself, prophetic dreams are definitely something i can't ignore. like deja vu with a twist. like fate a bit unraveled. like watching from the fringes of reality.
like knowing but not understanding the elusive answers to the age old questions.

(another poem riddled with cliches)


You and I

what can I dream as I lay on my bed?
what can I say that hasn't been said?
what can I write that hasn't been read?
can you envision what hasn't been seen?
what can be added to what has been?
where do dreams exist
that never come true?
in your heart? in your mind?
is it fates strange twist?
are we so blind?
how long have you waited?
have you loved it?
-or hated?
if you knew you were to die come morning
would you pray to God?
-or try to stop it?
would you give me fair warning
if you were a prophet?
-or hold your voice,
to live and die with blood on your hands?
is it a choice?
-or destiny's stillborn child?
tell me why
are you and i?

I?ve never really bought into the intuitive idiom people usually describe when discussing fate.

It seems to make much clearer sense (to me) if explained, ?mechanically? I guess. I just mean...

If all things are composed of atomic structures (for this example I'll use atoms as the sole atomic structure) then there are physical laws they must abide by.

There's a reaction for every action.

Even with then simple models of the real world use by humanity today we can still tell what will happen in the future. If I launch a space shuttle to the moon I can tell you when it will land on the lunar surface.

Your thinking... no, you certainly can't figure out the ~exact~ moment in time something will happen; and you?d be right, with the method of calculation currently used in physics you can't, the granularity is wrong and the scope is too narrow.

Your thinking... well what if the shuttle gets struck by a meteor and never makes it to lunar surface at the calculated time; because the calculations never accounted for the atomic partials which the meteor was composed of.

If you could calculate the positions, velocities, trajectories, etc of all the atoms in the universe you would know the future. How do you do calculations like that? you can't (at least not at this stage in humanity). What does this have to do with your brain and the way it functions... your brain is just collection cells. The better your cells work together to make you smarter, stronger, live longer... the longer ~they~ get to stay alive. The cells which make up your brain are in turn made of smaller things, then smaller things etc.

I've done a terrible job trying to explain what I mean (as usual) and made myself look like a lunatic in the process, go me.


[edit]I'm not necessarily a firm believer of fate, I just have an open mind and felt like coming at it from a different angle.[/edit]


[This message has been edited by Rooster (edited 07-15-2003).]

Hee hee ... shuttle on the moon ...

quote:

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Therefore, not cliche. Paranoia, fear, fate.

---

Uh...nope, still very cliche.

I don't think there was any confusion over what you meant initially =)

.

Personally, I don't believe in "fate" at all. I think it is simply an over romanticized notion used to try to give occurances more meaning than they actually have. But then again, I think that holds true for many human habits...