View Full Version : As a firm believer in fate, I cant help but wonder…
I've found out today a good friend of mine living in Malawi has been struck down with Malaria. She is on the mend, but its still one hell of a nasty disease. I know other people that have had it at least ten times, they must become partially immune, as its never as bad as the first time.
As most of you know, my parents caught it when me and my brother were seven and three years old respectively. I can remember saying I didn’t like to think of what would have happened to us had my parents passed away. I hate even thinking about it, but what would have happened? According to fate, they were supposed to live, we were supposed to move back to the UK, and I am supposed to lead this life.
But if they had died? Where would I be? Where would my brother be? Would we have moved in with my grandparents? Or with an auntie and uncle? Would me and my brother have been separated? Would we have gone to the same school? Would we have had the same friends? Would I have been a social outcast for losing my parents as such a young age?
Would I be where I am today?
:( thats bad news... hope she recovers... I know what you mean though, how different your life would be, for a start you would have never have posted that thread...
Am taking my last week of Malaria tablet this week.... THANK GOODNESS they make me wanna hurl.
BB x
LeperousDust
30-06-2008, 14:52
Life is just potentially millions of different choices, some of which you don't make. Thats about as close as i get to "fate". It is interesting to think, but what's happened has happened, hence you't change that fact. But you do have some control over what can happen, so look that way!
//Edit: Its like driving a car looking out the back window ;D
But I think my whole life has already been mapped out for me. Whatever happens to me now, is already planned.
Even if I have to make some decisions along the way, I was already going to make them anyway! Did that make sense? :D
LeperousDust
30-06-2008, 14:58
No :p
But only because i don't like not being in control of where i take myself. :)
He says as he blatantly fails uni through lack of motivation, jeez got contradiction?
But I think my whole life has already been mapped out for me. Whatever happens to me now, is already planned.
Even if I have to make some decisions along the way, I was already going to make them anyway! Did that make sense? :D
I don't the like the sound of that as it means that no matter what you choose to do at points in your life, nothing can change. I prefer to think that my life is not mapped out so anything I do changes it that little bit more.
Chuckles
30-06-2008, 15:00
Believing in fate sounds like a cop out to me.
You make your own destiny.
Yes, but you dont know that ultimatley the decisions you make, were already mapped out for you.
I didnt want to spark a debate, was simply wondering what might have happened.
LeperousDust
30-06-2008, 15:07
Well don't worry about it, becuase it wouldn't have happened if your life is already mapped out :p
//Debate ;D
Thats what I am trying to say you goon ;D
It was obviously meant to happen this way, I was simply pondering what would have happened if it had gone the other way, which it couldnt have done, because its already been mapped out!!!!
My head hurts :D
LeperousDust
30-06-2008, 15:14
Well what i'm trying to say is why ponder when you *know* it wouldn't have happened (well at least with hindsight since it didn't). Theres nothing you can do to change that. This is a fairly useless circular argument and i have better things to do, sorry Dee rofl ;D *lubs*.
Chuckles
30-06-2008, 15:16
Yes, but you dont know that ultimatley the decisions you make, were already mapped out for you.
Equally, you don't know that the decisions you make weren't already mapped out for you.
So in the absence of any firm evidence in either way, why choose to believe to more irrational option?
This is a bit like... the Doppleganger thing, apparently there is someone in Bristol who is the spit of me... I swear I saw Lozza in Brighton the other weekend, but she said if she'd been with me she would have died.
I would be interested to see someone who looked like me, but I don't wanna die :(
BB x
Matblack
30-06-2008, 15:19
I find predeterminism a very hard concept to rationalise, if I believe in it then I have to believe that every action is predetermined and that any control that I have over my life is the ramblings of a mind driven mad as it struggles to free its self from a pre determined future, which is really sad.
I don't deny there are things I am unable to effect but my response is my own and what I do could effect the future in a number of different ways so predeterminism just doesn't make sense, unless of course you believe in a higher power and it that were the case why would they have mapped a future for every living being rather than have allowed it to play itself out naturally?
Chaos is far more fun to watch.
MB
'Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will'. - Nehru
LeperousDust
30-06-2008, 15:25
'Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will'. - Nehru
Wow, i really like that. Beats my made up quote :)
Doesn't it follow that a belief in fate and a propensity for thinking 'what if' forms a contradiction? I guess you could argue that you could ponder upon 'what if my fate had taken an alternative pre-mapped path', but then I could counter-argue that to conceive of that notion is to prove free will exists.
I think I might just sit here and slowly relieve myself in my chair. Take that fate! Weren't expecting that one were you?!
'Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will'. - Nehru
Brilliant quote :) Not heard that before.
This is a bit like... the Doppleganger thing, apparently there is someone in Bristol who is the spit of me... I swear I saw Lozza in Brighton the other weekend, but she said if she'd been with me she would have died.
I would be interested to see someone who looked like me, but I don't wanna die :(
BB x
I have a doppleganger and I've met her and I didn't die! Wooo! :D Quite scary though seeing me but not me!
It's quite nice when someone believes in fate... but I certainly don't :) Think I'm a bit like LD here! I play by my own rules and make my own game! Like... like... like right now I am putting my toe on my nose. I'm sure that's not fate. I decided to do it!
Sometimes I do the whole "what if" thing though! "What if I did stay with the police", "What if I did take that flight" etc. Tis interesting but fruitless! I prefer to think of what I can do now :)
semi-pro waster
30-06-2008, 15:45
Wow, i really like that. Beats my made up quote :)
That's why Nehru is quotable and you aren't (yet). :p
Pre-determinism isn't an easy concept to rationalise as Mat says, if you have no influence on the choices you make then you essentially have no responsibility for them either and that gives great potential for abdicating the norms of behaviour in favour of doing whatever because "well, I can't affect the future anyway". It is of course possible that I am little more than a marionnette following a pre-determined path but if I believe that then it leads to questioning what influence and purpose I have for doing anything in the World. The main problem is that the argument is almost entirely circular - if I do anything it is because I was pre-determined to do so, if I don't then I wasn't - a sort of argumentum ad ignoratiam, it can't be proven false but nor can it be proven true.
Sometimes I do the whole "what if" thing though! "What if I did stay with the police", "What if I did take that flight" etc. Tis interesting but fruitless! I prefer to think of what I can do now
Was talking about you at the weekend and Shattered, but I didn't lead the conversation, my friend who I was visiting did and they wondered if you ended up getting in the police.
That was a weird moment - was like I knew a celebratory!
lol
As you were. :p
What was your Doppelganger like - wasn't she hideously awful?
BB x
Was talking about you at the weekend and Shattered, but I didn't lead the conversation, my friend who I was visiting did and they wondered if you ended up getting in the police.
That was a weird moment - was like I knew a celebratory!
lol
As you were. :p
What was your Doppelganger like - wasn't she hideously awful?
BB x
Hahaha! An Ex-Z list celebratory! ;D
She's lovely and she surfs!
What makes it weirder though is she lives in Truro (where Picky is from) and is dating my friend who lives in Poole (where I am from/used to live!)
Bit backwards really :p ;D
WEirdness... need pics!
:p
BB x
Somewhere two possible universes have crossed and now there's a Phickers and Peebs infiltrating our reality.
Chuckles
30-06-2008, 16:13
'Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will'. - Nehru
It's a nice soundbite, but I don't believe it to be true.
The concept of Free Will is based on a metaphystical liberal ideal. If you believe your fate is determined, you by defination cannot believe in the notion of free will as you are implying implicitly that your choices are irrelevent. Whether you believe in some fundemental foundation of determinism (as I it would seem the quote implies), or you believe in the concept as a whole doesn't matter. You either accept the notion of free will or not.
In addition, if you believe in the concept of determinism by your own admission, you have made an irrational decision. Think about it - The concept of determinism means that the choices you make are to an extent meaningless because you do not truely possess Free Will. Accepting that is the case, they you can't possibly have chosen to believe in the concept to any form of rational criticique - Catch 22 ;)
Matblack
30-06-2008, 16:20
I think there is some confusion here between determinism and pre-determinism [predestination]
MB
Chuckles
30-06-2008, 16:25
I think there is some confussion between determinism and pre determinism
MB
Really? I thought the difference was that pre-determinism was pretty much the same but your choices were determined by "God"
I don't believe in fate as I have a mind that's far too pragmatic for that. However I believe in the science behind quantum mechanics and parallel time lines, after all time is just a dimension, and within time it is split into it's own dimension. There are in fact 10 dimensions of time if you believe the theories. However I digress... so I believe that there always are an infinite amount of possibilities and every decision you make will ultimately have a different effect on your life. So whether or not that's fate I don't know, but I don't believe that all the time lines have been written - in fact I stubbornly refuse to believe or even entertain such a preposterous idea. I believe we make our own luck, our own fate and our decisions.
However on an aside I hope she recovers fully and glad that you're here with us on this plane of existence and that I have got to know you! :)
I think we all have free will and our choices matter. I think.
If I hadnt have asked my friend to come on holiday with me when I was 15, she wouldnt have asked me to go with her and I wouldnt have thrown peanuts at Mike and we wouldnt have met, and I wouldnt have the kids, and I wouldnt have been the wife of a nerd and got 'into' the internet, and I wouldnt have met you lot, and I wouldnt have split up with him and needed a job, and I wouldnt have joined the police, and I wouldnt have met M, and and and and.........................
It's impossible to comprehend what might have been, because we'll never ever know!
I'm confused about this decision making milarky. If you believe in fate, then does that mean that you never think long and hard about decisions, because the one you're going to make is fate anyway? Does it mean that people who believe in fate think a lot less about making decisions than those who don't?
Chuckles
01-07-2008, 12:09
I'm confused about this decision making milarky. If you believe in fate, then does that mean that you never think long and hard about decisions, because the one you're going to make is fate anyway? Does it mean that people who believe in fate think a lot less about making decisions than those who don't?
Indeed. You would also have to rethink all moral codes about issues of punishment and reward as apparantly they would come from a determined path, rather than through the will of the individual.
Flibster
01-07-2008, 12:15
"the future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves"
;)
Chuckles
01-07-2008, 12:18
Is that from back to the future? :D
BTTF is "It means your future hasn't been written yet. No-one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one, both of you."
Flibster
01-07-2008, 12:32
terminator isn't it?
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
Davey_Pitch
01-07-2008, 13:11
"the future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves"
;)
Said by John Conner to the Terminator after seeing Sarah had carved "No Fate" into the table, if I remember correctly :)
Said by John Conner to the Terminator after seeing Sarah had carved "No Fate" into the table, if I remember correctly :)
I thought it was part of the message adult John Conner made Kyle memorise to say to Sarah Conner?
Flibster
01-07-2008, 14:28
I thought it was part of the message adult John Conner made Kyle memorise to say to Sarah Conner?
That version is from T2 tbh.
The original from The Terminator is:
"Sarah, thank you. For your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to tell you that the future is not set... there is no such thing as Fate, but what we make for ourselves by our own will. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist."
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