I have been having some discussions about Fate/Destiny versus Chaos\Coincidence lately. Basically, I think neither fate nor true chaos can exist. Our futures are determined by a matrix of interconnected coincidences that manifest in the "force" of a collective subconscious. (maybe "determined" is not the right word... Keep that in mind, and read on...) This is not yet a fully formed philosophy or ideology in my mind. More like a jumble of related thoughts in need of organization and further thought. I am fairly sure that someone must have already thought of this (or something like it), but I have never personally read it. So I decided to post it here, get some feedback, and, if it does already exist as a formed philosophy, maybe someone can educate me and give me something to read. If not, maybe it can be scrutinized and questioned here to help me form the idea. I do, however, know what it isn't... What I am talking about is not the Hindi Akasha. I don't see it as a dimension where all this information is stored and we can walk along this plane or access it to read or manipulate it. I am also not talking about Jung's collective unconscious, in which we are all born with an inherited innate sense and understanding of what has been known before in our subconscious mind. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If something is "Destined" to happen, that means it has been decided before hand, and nothing you can do will change that. If you CAN change it, is that Fate? How is it really anything more than Cause and Effect? If I drop this glass from my roof onto the cement it will break. Would you say that that glass was destined to break? If it were, that would imply that I had no choice in the matter of going up to my roof and dropping that glass at that particular place and time. Otherwise the destiny would not come to fruition, therfore, destiny would not be possible. I am open to suggestions, however, I honestly can't even concieve fate and free will coexisting. Not without a diety looking over. No matter how commonplace or extreme the example is. This is how I look at it... Every choice you make in life is directly and indirectly related to every choice you have ever made and every choice you are yet to make, along with every choice everyone you have ever come into contact with has ever made or will ever make. Take the 6 degrees of seperation and multiply it by a few billion. Yes, it can go to quite an extreme. You could sit and find a way that if Leonardo Davinci's mother turned left on Maple street rather than right, then Hitler would never have been born. But you can also look at it in a very simple close-up view. If your mother had never met you father our child would never have been born. If our child was destined to save the life a drowning woman, that woman dies, and fate crumbles at its core. The only other option I can see is that if SOME things are destined to happen. Like, it doesn't matter WHO saves that drowning woman, as long as she is saved, because she is pregnant with the person that will bring world peace. How could that happen without someone (or something) with intellect, intention and knowledge of the future watching over her and protecting her? I often sit in awe over the interconnectedness of all our lives. It, in itself, is something to be worshipped and praised. Every minute decision that any person anywhere in the world makes (even subconsciously) affects me in some way. That force is more powerful than any God ever concieved by man. The world has 6 billion people on it, and many billions more who have lived in the millions of years in our past. If you go back far enough in time, it is concievable that a single dust mote 20 billion years ago, if caught in a different breeze than it was caught in, could have stopped the Earth from even existing. The most beautiful and intricate spider web ever spun pales in comparison. It isn't random. It isn't fate either. It is coincidence. An intricate matrix of interconnected coincidences whose future is not built yet, and completely changes every moment of every second, and will continue until time no longer exists. The mere thought of it never fails to make me shiver. It makes me feel incredibly small and insignificant and as powerful as a God at the same time. I wouldn't want to live in the world if it were any other way. I couldn't live if I didn't believe in free will. I think that every person is nothing more than a result of all their experiences added to the root being (soul, Id, true self... whetever term you want to use here) of who they are. All you do and say, somehow affects those around you. Sometimes it is a minor effect, sometimes a profound effect. All your experiences shape how you think, how you view the world, how you act and react in circumstances etc. Most of your experiences involve other people (directly or indirectly). Now take a step back... The people that have influenced you in some way (everyone you have ever met) have all been influenced by all the people they have met and the experiences they have had in the past. Now take another step back and look in the other direction... Every thing you do, every decision you make, every thought and idea you have (if it has been expressed in some way, even subconsciously) will affect countless people around you in your countless experiences to come. Picture each of them as a ripple in an immense pool of water. Now, just look at the ripples alone. All of them influencing and affecting each other in some way or another. The bigger the initial splash was, the more reslience it has, the more it affects other ripples, the longer it lives. Those ripples have a life of their own. They go on and on forever. They affect every other ripple that was there in the pool already. They will affect every ripple that will come in the future. No one can know what other ripples are yet to come, but each ripple to come is, to some degree, affected or entirely determined by the ripples that came before affecting the person who will be making this new ripple. That collection of infinite ripples (some which have been there since the beginning of time) does not have intention, nor does it have control over itself but it has an immense control over our actions and view of the world and all the events that will occur in the future. It has a force over (or as part of) reality. It is immortal and inevitable. Your actions, and even thoughts, have an effect on these ripples, and these ripples have an effect on everyone in the world. This collection of ripples can be seen as a "common subconsciousness", in a way. This common subconscious force, could very well be viewed a God of sorts. Without this common subconscious force having cognizance and intention... without it having knowledge of what ripple there are to come... there can't be pre-determined fate. But there is cause and effect, not simple chaos. Chaos is not possible because everything is affected by everything else. Nothing you have ever done, have you done without being influenced in some way by this common subconsciousness. It makes me feel insignificant because it makes me feel like a part of a whole rather than an individual. However, knowing the immense impact I can have with a single thought or idea, makes me feel powerful Also, knowing that my ideas could live forever in this collection of ripples, in a way, makes me immortal. I'm rambling, I know. But, like I said, I need to try and collect all my thoughts on this in an easy to explain, succinct collection. If it makes you think at all, and makes you reconsider what you believe, then it has had an effect on you and the way you think. That effect is proof of it being true, no? Any thoughts to share?
There was some point when the universe realized itself to exist, and manifested itself into the 'physical'(or the illusion of the physical)diverse life forms here on earth and probably elsewhere that we cannot detect. I say illusion of the physical because we are much more than physical and this is undeniable. We are consciousness first and foremost. Without that, we would merely appear to be inanimate dust and bones. Ok, so this might not be true. . .but at least give it a little thought please. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I am really not sure what you are talking about or how it applies to this. Maybe you could try re-wording it?
If by your hypothesis, you can trace back and see how the effects of one action shaped all, and also from your hypothsis, there must have been a first consciouness. If there must have been a first and all effects can be predicted by the model you give, then everything is indeed fate. Beacuse that first consciouness spawned everything and everything is the resultant of that first consciousness. Cause and effect does not contradict or support fate. If the cause always produces that effect, then producing that cause will produce that effect. Also, this made no sense to me: If I drop this glass from my roof onto the cement it will break. Would you say that that glass was destined to break? If it were, that would imply that I had no choice in the matter of going up to my roof and dropping that glass at that particular place and time. Otherwise the destiny would not come to fruition, therfore, destiny would not be possible. It does not follow that destiny is not possible simply because of the hypothetical that you dropping the glass would break. It does not follow logically. Nevertheless, I like your idea of a collective consciousness. Statistics will say that the more people you have---the more consciouness, the more insignificant each individual action affects the whole. How do you think the collective ocnsciouness will behave were the population of the earth ten times what it is now, and experiences more similar as the result of a shared culture?
Interesting thought. However, it would only be applicable if the common subconsciousness were the only force at play, the ONLY thing driving us to do what we do. I think it is a significant force - it has a fiercely strong influence on us - however, It is certainly not the only factor with an influence. I DO believe in free will. I just believe that this force influences what decisions we make and influences who we are as people both on a physical level and a psychological one. In and of itself? No not at all. I do not assert that cause and effect alone contradicts fate. However, I do believe that fate and free will can not coexist without some form of conscious mediator. I am not sure if you were not understanding me, or I am not understanding you, but I am confused about this. What I was trying to say is that if I drop a glass it will break. That is not support of fate alone, it is a simple demonstration of cause and effect. However, if someone claims that it is a matter of fate, then fate would have dictated that I would have to be there, on my roof at that particular place and time and drop the glass. It is like the point I was trying to make with the drowning woman. I was not saying that the child WAS destined to save her. What I was trying to point out was the events that would invariably have to lead up to any event that were "pre-destined" would ALL have to be "pre-destined" or none of them are. Unless, of course, you believe in an all-powerful cognizant God and/or guardian angels and the like. If event A were fated to happen, then every single thing that could influence event A in any way would also have to be fated to happen or event A would Never happen. Whatever event A is. The way I see it, there are 3 options. 1.) Fate and pre-destination. There is no such thing as free will. All our actions are already determined for us millions of years before we were even born. Some grand creator set this plan up and put the wheels in motion. 2.) Interconnected coincidence following cause and effect. (everything I have been saying on this thread) 3.) A mix. (fate and chaos co-existing) Some things are pre-destined, some are due to free-will. This requires the God-figure with his little guardian angels, and other minions taking care of things and making sure that SOME things happen and leaving everything else alone. a.) I don't believe in fairies. b.) I think this view is a simple cop-out excuse for people to say, "It was meant to be." and still believe that they have free will. People trying to have their cake and eat it too. A matter of convenience. I think the effects are much more bound to communication rather than population. If the population were 200,000, but there is little communication, transfer of ideas and physical interraction, then the effect would be less than if it were a population of half that with twice the communication. I think the only directy correlation between this and populations is that as population increases, generally the population becomes more dense and interractions increase.
The problem seems to be that all the evidence we have (including your examples) is consistent with strict determinism or with the operation of freewill. There is no 'third-person' way of telling them apart. This is why the freewill vs determinism debate is still not settled. Many people do not accept the idea of freewill because it entails that consciousness is causal. If this is the case the the scientific model is nonsense (e.g. orthodox evolutionary theory does not refer to consciousness and freewill at all). So if you want to argue that freewill exists you are forced in the end to find a mechanism by which non-physical consciousness can affect physical brains. The scientific view is that this is impossible and that consciousness is not real (epiphenomenal, supervenient, an illusion of 'folk-psychology, etc). I'm not disagreeing with you. But if freewill exists it can only be because consciousness is more fundamental than brains. If C arises from brains then it is physical brain operations that decide how we act, and these can be presumed to be strictly determined (or possible indeterminate at a QM level - which also does not lead to freewill). Thus many scientific philosophers suggest that consciousness rationalises our actions in hindsight, and does not cause them. I don't agree with this but the evidence is ambiguous. However one thing is certain. If freewill exists then the current scientific model is very wrong at a fundamental level.
First, epiphenomenal does not imply "not real". It implies that it is a real phenomenon resulting from another. Racism is a perfect example. Racism is an epiphenomenon that results from racial and cultural differences and misunderstandings/ignorance. It is not a tangible piece of matter. It is not a quantifyable energy source. However, it is a very real force that has an undeniable affect on the people it touches. To the people that claim consciousness is not "real", I would point to synergy. Sure, mechanically there is nothing but grey matter that determines our thoughts and perceptions. However, those parts of the brain work together and produce a synergistic result. It is clearly visible on a more macro scale. Put two intelligent people together to work out a problem and compare/contrast thoughts and ideas. Their combined analytical ability (if they are compatible enough to have a symbiotic relationship) would be greater than person1 + person2. As opposed to two computers whose combined computing power would be exactly computer1 + computer2. Two people will solve a problem faster than twice the time of one person solving it. It is the natural result of combining differing perspectives between two people with minds open enough to accept and consider the opposing/differing points of view. Where does that extra ability come from? It is not imaginary. It is "real" because the results are observable. I can live with that. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
'Epiphenomonalism' states that consciousness is not causal. Something that cannot cause anything cannot be anything. Physicalists would asert that they produce a state of the brain and no more, albeit that it self-references somehow and for no purpose. It is two brains working together, consciousness doesn't come into for it is non-causal. This is an axiom of physical determinism. I can live with that. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! [/B][/QUOTE] So can I - on this issue the scientific view is absurd and unsupported by the evidence.
