Free Will and Predestiny

[Arbee]

I feel like I'm doing something naughty that I shouldn't be doing... but this section is here, so I'm going to put it to use. Those of you who are brave enough to step forward, I would love to hear what you think about the matter at hand. Please note that, by continuing past this point, you have gone about it on your own initiative, and I am not responsible, and the forum administration is not responsible, for any offense that you might take from this discussion. If you feel that you cannot handle the subject at hand, I suggest that you desist immediately, and venture back to the regular topics of discussion.

Thank you.



Still here, are you?



Well, this is your last chance to turn around.



Okay, then, we'll continue, shall we?

Being an agnostic, myself, I would like to go ahead and say that my religious convictions are as follows: I have acknowledged the existence of a higher power--who or what that power may be, I have no idea, I don't believe I will ever know, and I am more than content to let it be. Thus far, I have lived a very happy life, with plenty of good done by me and for me, and I'm content with my beliefs. That being said, I have no problems with other religions--my policy on personal preference is "to each his own," which means that you're free to believe what you want to believe--I'm not going to force my views upon you, and I expect you to show me the same respect.

Today, I would like to bring to you the subject of predestiny--the school of thought that what happens is written out, that every move you make is planned by some higher authority, and (the general consensus seems to be thus, anyway) that there is no such thing as "free will."

Many people that I have talked to in the past don't favor the concept because they feel that if they have no choice, no bearing over the direction that their life takes, then there is no point in living.

I personally believe in predestiny, though I prefer to view it from the following stance: Life is like a book. You are the main character in your book--it is your story, to read from start to finish. However, this book differs from normal books in that you cannot just skip to the end, you must read it page by page. This is what I feel makes each story enjoyable--you can't just skip to the end and ruin it for yourself.

Of course (and I'll be the first to admit this), I don't know everything, and I'm always learning and finding new ways to see, think, and feel, and some of these don't catch my interest, and some of them do.

I'm interested to hear what the rest of you have to say on the matter...

[Sandwich]

I believe the same. I think everything we do was preplanned, or was known about at the beginning of time (which is a whole thing in itself, so I won't get into that). If you go back in time and step on a butterfly, it was predestined for you to step on that butterfly after coming back in time. Whatever you do has already been foreseen and/or created.

[McNinja]

I believe in free will, everything can't be pre-planned as far as I know because of the uncertainty principle, which, tl;dr, means that you can't predict certain subatomic interactions.
These interactions influence mostly radioactive decay as far as I know but they probably had something to do with the formation on the universe and if you can't predict things from the very start, you're not going to get anything else unless it's just chance. (Pun intended)

[Sandwich]

Hmmm, you seem to be going about things on a more scientific level. I definitely agree that this type of thing wouldn't make sense scientifically--unless we haven't discovered an additional something in science that might prove it. Personally I believe that there are a lot of supposedly "spiritual" things in the universe that actually can be proven by "science", if science did a bit more searching (over thousands of years, probably). But I don't think we would find anything because our minds are too feeble to comprehend it. So I believe we only get bits and pieces of science.

[McNinja]

I believe that if something can't be proved or disproved, it's unhelpful to your understanding to assume that it is or isn't, so you disregard it.

[Grammer]

As far as I see it, whether there is such a thing a predestiny/fate or free will doesn't matter. it's my belief that if there is such a thing as predestiny, your belief in free will is part of that. So when you come to a crossroad and figure fate wants you to go right, so you decide to go left, fate actually wanted you to go left, because it was predestined that you would go left. The decision process that led you to choosing left isn't relevant, only that you did as was predestined.

So as I think I said, if there is such a thing as predestiny, it takes your little tantrums about free will into consideration, and then makes sure you do as you're supposed to anyway. Of course, this view on it is pretty crapsack, because if it is true, fighting fate is completely impossible. If you look into the future and see something happen, and then makes sure the event doesn't. it just means you were predestined to prevent what happened in the viewing. Indeed, you were shown this future so you would prevent it.

That is how I view predestiny. Whether I believe in it depends on my state of mind and alcohol consumption, because it's not a very happy view. On good days, I prefer to believe in free will (and by extension that what we do doesn't matter). After all, there is no larger scheme, and if you take a look at the Earth, why would anything happening here have an impact on anything? We're an insignificant blue dot in space! So yeah, on good days I believe that nothing matters because whatever choice we do won't have any effect whatsoever. I'd like to win against my views one of these days.

[Sandwich]

McNinja: Yeah, pretty much. But people need something to believe in, whether it's a supreme being or science.

Grammer: Totally agreed. As for Earth being insignificant, I also agree. But that's merely because our minds haven't developed enough to reach out further and understand/comprehend things more. If we did, we wouldn't restrict ourselves to what we merely see and hear and we could break past the barrier of insignificance. At least that's what I think.

[NightLoki]

5:35am Pacific Time, it's Philosophy Time


Just to give a quick background on the...angle of my viewpoints, I'm what you'd call a liberal Christian. It's a terrible way to label it, but the closest I've gotten so far.

As far as free will goes, I have the stance that while God (the higher power, what have you) knows everything that is going to happen, we don't, and therefore have free will thanks to ignorance. We cannot know the future, and even knowing the future would invariably lead to us changing what we've seen somehow, so free will does exist. And doesn't. It's like talking Quantum mechanics really, in my personal opinion.


And if you were expecting me to go "I'm Christian, I'm right!" well.....sorry?

[Sandwich]

Yeah, exactly. It's like...We perceive it as free will because we have no possible way of seeing through some ultimate Creator's "eyes" and viewing the Mobius strip like a book. Well, I believe there are ways to "see", but that involves more than 10% of one's brain power. That's a rarity, so we're here hoping we can even remember the past. XD

Also, Loki, kudos on the non-preachiness.