As a firm believer in fate, I cant help but wonder…

[LeperousDust]

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 *lubs*.

[Chuckles]

Originally Posted by Betty

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?

[BBx]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Matblack

'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

[Belmit]

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?!

[BBx]

Dirty Oik!

BB x

[Haly]

Originally Posted by Matblack

'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.

[Pheebs]

Originally Posted by BBelle

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! 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]

Originally Posted by LeperousDust

Wow, i really like that. Beats my made up quote

That's why Nehru is quotable and you aren't (yet).

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.